Book Cover -- Half-Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Foreword -- PART ONE Separation anxiety in psychoanalytic practice -- 1 Separation anxiety in transference phantasies -- The two faces of solitude -- Separation anxiety: a universal phenomenon -- How is separation anxiety manifested? -- Between the conscious and the unconscious -- Freud, separation and object-loss -- Reality and the phantasy of separation and object-loss -- Separation anxiety in the analysand2-analyst relationship -- From clinical practice to the various theories -- Notes -- 2 Separation anxiety illustrated by a clinical example -- The diversity of manifestations of separation anxiety -- Meanings of an instance of acting out -- Repetition of an infantile psychical trauma -- Towards the working through of the Oedipal situation -- The link between love and hate in ambivalence -- The return of separation anxiety with the approach of the end of the analysis -- Being oneself and tolerating solitude -- 3 Approaches to the interpretation of separation anxiety -- Separation and differentiation -- Distinguishing for the purpose of unification -- Separation anxiety and mourning-work -- Losses and gains -- At the junction between narcissistic relations and object relations -- Separation anxiety and narcissistic disorders -- Note -- PART ONE Separation anxiety in psychoanalytic practice -- 4 Freud, separation anxiety and object-loss -- 1 Separation and object-loss in Freud's early writings -- Infantile dependence and helplessness -- Fear of separation as the source of anxiety in the child -- The question of primary narcissism -- 2 'Mounting and melancholia' (1917e [1915]) -- Introjection of the lost object -- Ambiguities in Freud -- It is the subject-ego that criticizes the object and not the other way round -- Where does the sadism of the superego come from?.

Splitting of the ego and disavowal of reality as defences against object-loss -- A transference example of introjection of the lost object and of the turning back of hate against oneself -- 3 Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926d) -- Freud and Rank's The Trauma of Birth -- Anxiety as a reaction of the ego to the danger of object-loss -- The dangers vary according to the time of life -- Repetition, remembering and expectation of the traumatic situation -- The relationship between external and internal danger -- The affects of anxiety, pain and mourning -- Splitting of the ego, Freud's third theory of anxiety -- The influence of Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety -- Note -- 5 The views of Melanie Klein and her school on separation anxiety and object-loss -- 1 Separation anxiety and object-loss in Melanie Klein -- Separation and object-loss in the paranoid-schizoid position and the depressive position -- The manic defence -- External reality and psychical reality -- Separation and loss in infantile development -- Interpretation in the analytic situation -- Narcissism, projectile identification and envy -- 2 Rosenfeld: projective identification and narcissistic structure -- Projective identification and envy as sources of confusion between the ego and the object -- Libidinal narcissism and destructive narcissism -- 3 Segal: narcissism, ego-object differentiation and symbolization -- Narcissism as an expression of the death instinct -- Object-loss and symbol formation -- Clinical implications of the contributions ofRosenfeld and Segal -- 4 Bion: vicissitudes of the container-contained relationship -- Projective identification as a means of communication -- The 'capacity for reverie' -- Vicissitudes of the container-contained relationship -- Clinical consequences -- 5 Meltzer: the psychoanalytic process and separation anxiety.

Projective identification and analytic cycles -- The stages of the psychoanalytic process -- Anal masturbation and separation anxiety -- Adhesive identification -- A return to the concept of primary narcissism? -- 6 The place of separation anxiety and object-loss in the other main psychoanalytic theories -- 1 Fairbairn: dependences and differentiation anxieties -- The libido in search of objects -- The role of separation anxiety in psychopathology -- 2 Winnicott: holding and disorders of primitive emotional development -- Early anxieties and lack of maternal care -- Holding and the analytic situation -- Regressing in order to progress -- 3 Anna Freud and Rene A.Spitz: stages of development and separation anxiety -- Anna Freud: the consequences of separation anxiety for development -- Rene A.Spitz: the psychopathology of separation and of real object-loss -- 4 Mahler: the concept of separation-individuation -- Psychological birth -- The inability to separate: symbiotic psychosis -- The process of separation-individuation in clinical psychoanalysis -- 5 Heinz Kohut: separation and working through in narcissistic disorders -- Separations and mobilization of the idealizing transference -- A self-contained psychoanalytic psychology? -- 6 The concepts of attachment and loss in Bowlby -- An attempt at synthesis and re-evaluation -- A conception more biological than psychoanalytic -- The challenge of Bowlby: a spur to the psychoanalysts -- PART THREE Technical considerations -- 7 Transference interpretations of separation anxiety -- What theory should be taken as the basis for interpretation? -- The value of interpreting separation anxiety -- Different analysands and their different universes -- The transference as a total situation -- A particularly favoured moment for transference interpretation -- The role of projective identification.

A clinical example: re-establishing the 'red thread' cut by separation anxiety -- In the microcosm of the session -- In the long term: a conception of the psychoanalytic process -- Loss of the real object and the working through of mourning in the transference -- 8 Psychical pain and negative transference -- Transference hatred of the loved object -- A trial for the counter-transference -- Interpretation of the positive concealed behind the negative -- The presence of the object as a source of psychical pain -- Separation anxiety as a syndrome? -- The negative therapeutic reaction and separation anxiety -- The problems of the infantile psychical trauma -- An example of the compulsion to repeat a traumatic situation -- 9 Acting out and separation anxiety -- Close links -- Acting out and separation in clinical practice -- Acting out as a search for a psychical container -- Separations, session times and fees -- 10 The psychoanalytic setting and the container function -- The conditions of the psychoanalytic experience -- The psychoanalytic setting and the container-contained relationship -- PART FOUR The taming of solitude -- 11 Termination of the analysis and separation anxiety -- The end of the analysis in Freud -- The principal termination models -- Termination of the analysis and mourning -- A criterion for termination -- Separation anxiety and analysis interminable -- 12 The capacity to be alone, buoyancy and the integration of psychical life -- Taming solitude -- Introjection of the good object as the foundation of integration -- Transference and the psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality -- An example of the feeling of integration -- From separation anxiety to buoyancy -- The result of a dynamic equilibrium -- Becoming oneself and becoming responsible for oneself -- Introjective identification with a good, containing object.

Buoyancy, space and time -- Dimensionality and Oedipal triangulation -- Dreams, buoyancy and the counter-transference -- Note -- Recapitulation and conclusions -- Why I wrote this book -- Structure of the book -- From separation anxiety to the taming of solitude -- Bibliography -- Name index -- Subject index.