ABSTRACT
Bion’s theory of the container relies on Klein’s “‘balance of projection and introjection” but adds a new element—that of detoxification. The maternal model of the container emphasizes understanding and relief. But containment also requires the analyst to stand up to a psychotic part of the patient’s personality that tries to destroy the container’s ability to contain. Self-containment rests not on identification, as the maternal model implies, but on love for the container in both its gratifying and prohibiting forms—in Klein’s terms, a combined parental object—as an object separate from the self. One implication of this is that the Oedipus complex is not resolved by identification: identification, being a defence against awareness of separateness, is a defence against the Oedipal situation, not a way of acknowledging its reality.
