Melanie Klein, “The Importance of Symbol-Formation in the Development of the Ego” (1930) (XII)
In “Symbol-Formation” (1930), Klein indicates that “Infant Analysis” (1923) represents her thinking about symbols hitherto:
“Some years ago I wrote a paper…in which I drew the conclusion that symbolism is the foundation of all sublimation and of every talent, since it is by way of symbolic equation that things, activities and interests become the subject of libidinal phantasies.” (220)
But, of course, when Klein published 1923’s “Infant Analysis,” Freud’s own thinking was still undergoing far-reaching changes. These changes were only gradually consolidated, it seems to me, in the years between Klein’s two essays (if not afterwards), and account for several of the striking differences in the latter. We will note the following three changes to Freud’s views during these years:
The revision of the drive theory, such that one dualism (libidinal drives and self-preserving drives) gives way to another (life-drives and death-drives) — with all the resulting conceptual complications this brings.
A new theory of anxiety, according to which anxiety is not “transformed libido” (a transformation ostensibly catalyzed by repression), but — at least in large part, and most significantly in the clinical setting — a “signal” of approaching danger.
The introduction of the structural model of the mind — alongside, but also in a kind of tension with, the previous “topographic” model.
I was unable to find any traces of these changes in Klein’s “Infant Analysis,” which makes no mention of any “drive” apart from “libido” and the “ego-drives.” (Certainly the death drive is nowhere to be found, while even “aggression” as a response to frustration plays no role here, let alone as an inborn ingredient in ever human psyche). Nor do we encounter any “anxiety” in this essay apart from that which constitutes transformed libido; or, again, any “agency” of the structural model apart from the “ego” — something not yet counterposed to the id and superego. By contrast, as we have seen, the account in “Symbol-Formation” clearly reflects each of these changes to Freud’s views. This, in any case, is the conceptual context for Klein’s treatment of symbols in “Infant Analysis,” which helps to explain some of its peculiarities.
Looking backward in “Symbol-Formation,” then, Klein ascribes to “Infant Analysis” the claim that “symbolism is the foundation of all sublimation and of every talent, since it is by way of symbolic equation that things, activities and interests become the subject of libidinal phantasies” (220). Where exactly in “Infant Analysis” are these claims introduced? What do they mean in the concrete? And how must they appear to Klein from her rather different theoretical standpoint in 1930?
The direction of explanation here is, as I’ve already underlined, from symbolism to sublimation and talent: the former is a condition of possibility of the latter. Accordingly, we are given to understand that in the absence of symbolism — more specifically, in the absence of “symbolic equation” — nothing like sublimation or talent could emerge at all.
Let us begin with the explananda (sublimation and talent) and, from there, consider the explanans (symbolic equation) that ostensibly grounds it. In “Infant Analysis,” Klein tells us that “sublimation” designates “the capacity to employ superfluous libido in a cathexis of ego-tendencies” (91). And later she elaborates that “libidinal cathexis of an ego-tendency…is (as appears with special clearness in infant-analysis) a constant component of every talent and every interest” (94).
What does Klein have in mind here? It is clear from the remainder of the piece that the phrase “ego-tendency” embraces a virtually inexhaustible range of human faculties, skills, and achievements, from the primitive to the sophisticated. It includes “games and athletic activities” (96); “walking, running, and athletic movements of all kinds” (96); ”art or…creative talent” (99); “the earliest movements and games of motion” (111); “walking, games and the sense of orientation” (111); “the activities of school life” (111); “speech and pleasure in motion” (114); as well as — Freud pointed this out — “the function of nutrition” (115). Indeed, this view becomes the basis of a strong anthropological conjecture:
“[T]he impulsion constantly to effect by means of fixations a libidinal cathexis of fresh ego-activities and interests genetically…connected with one another, and to create new activities and interests, would be the driving force in the cultural evolution of mankind.” (115)
Again: the general mechanism at the root of all these “activities and interests” — namely, the “libidinal cathexis of an ego-tendency” — is taken over from Freud:
“While we accept as valid the differentiation between ego-instincts and sexual instincts, we know on the other hand from Freud that some part of the sexual instincts remains throughout life associated with the ego-instincts and furnishes them with libidinal components…We call this process of cathexis with libido 'sublimation' and explain its genesis by saying that it gives to superfluous libido, for which there is no adequate satisfaction, the possibility of discharge, and that the damming-up of libido is thus lessened or brought to an end” (95)
All of this background, then, seems to be contained in the lines of “Symbol-Formation” that referred us back to “Infant Analysis” in the first place: the explananda of “sublimation and…every talent,” or the “things, activities and interests” that in the earlier essay are simply named “ego-tendencies.” The effective engine of these ego-tendencies — at least the part that elevates these tendencies to the level of a human skill or talent — is the libido with which they are invested.
(In other words: while something like ego-drives are also presumably at play in these matters, they would not suffice on their own to draw the requisite “interest” to a ego-tendency which would convert it into a “talent” proper. Only their “cathexis with libido” — “sublimation” — accomplishes this.)
So much, then, for the explananda. What leads Klein to make “symbolic equation” the explanans? I will take this up in the next entry.