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  • Commentary on “Primitive Mental Processes”
  • Chris Mace (bio)

This well-argued paper deserves to be read by practicing psychotherapists as well as anyone with a concern for ethics. In keeping with its aim of promoting “integration,” it highlights some incompatibilities between assumptions that are quite widely and publicly shared among philosophers and psychotherapists. By concentrating on the ethical implications of the psychoanalytic concepts of splitting, projection, and introjection, Hinshelwood identifies common ground either group may be willing to examine with the other. The power of his arguments comes from a complementarity between the focus on decisions that determine the extent to which a person becomes exposed to another’s influence (consenting to psychoanalytic treatment) and Hinshelwood’s selection of a set of “primitive” processes, each involving what he terms “interpersonal spreading,” as the most relevant unconscious mechanisms to consider in this respect. Ethical dilemmas are sharper when these “primitive” processes (as opposed to other unconscious processes such as “repression”) appear to operate, because the former represent a challenge to the interpersonal as well as to the personal status quo.

These psychoanalytic ideas have been presented and discussed in a previous paper with respect to their possible implications for personal identity (Hinshelwood 1996). That paper did a considerable service in helping philosophical discussion to be grounded in a model that practitioners would recognize, while highlighting one strand of contemporary analytic thinking. In moving the argument on to ethics, the same degree of difficulty may not have arisen if, instead of these concepts from Kleinian psychoanalysis, the implications of alternative models of deep psychological processes had been considered. Many of these do not place the same priority on object relationships, ranging from models that emphasize bodily experiences, so-called self objects, or symbolic functioning (cf. Mitchell and Black 1995) to the transpersonal archetypes of Jungian psychology (cf. Samuels 1985). However, alongside this variety of relatively refined theorizing, it remains possible to identify a common “analytic” view which, in accepting the importance of unconscious motivation in explaining human behavior, already undermines common sense views of individual autonomy and rationality without necessarily attributing this to an interpersonal confusion. At the same time, it is possible to envisage how, taking the psychoanalytic contributions of Melanie Klein as a point of departure, alternative ethical principles might have been derived from them, especially as her writings convey a deep curiosity as to how ethical sensitivity develops. Klein can be seen as acutely [End Page 145] sensitive to traditional moral concerns, such as experiences of good and evil or the interplay of love and hate, as she strives to account for how we develop a sense of ourselves and of others as agents in the early stages of emotional development.

Although Hinshelwood has been highly selective in his chosen foundation for a psychoanalytic ethics, highlighting those aspects of Kleinian psychology that seem opposed to moral and emotional maturation, this has allowed him to present arguments of real clarity and value. They lead to principles for general application, notably the principle of integration. In a brief commentary I shall concentrate on this destination rather than the journey to it. My impression was that this principle of integration is very illuminating but probably flawed as presented here. I shall try to give some explanations of why this may be before discussing some further points a revision may need to accommodate.

In the paper, the principle of integration is expressed in two stages. The first, giving its general form, says that any acts prompted by an aim of promoting integration will be beneficent. The second describes attitudes and behavior of the professional that, being intrinsically ethical, represent means by which ethical ends can be realized. I was not convinced that the second stage improved the first, although in trying to clarify how it would be applied, it is likely to reveal inherent contradictions more readily. It bears examination first.

Not all readers of the paper may be familiar with the practical context in which the hypothetical professional is working. They may not appreciate how Hinshelwood’s analysis of elements necessary for a professional’s stance to be ethical represents a potentially attractive attempt to justify many established practices in psychoanalytic psychotherapy...

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