Concept
Dimensionality of mental functioning
Meltzer's scheme, set out in Explorations in Autism (1975), for grading states of mind by the kind of space and time in which they relate to objects. One-dimensional functioning is a mindless line of movement towards or away from objects, as in autism proper; in two-dimensional functioning objects and self are felt as surfaces without insides, so that experience cannot be contained and identification can only be adhesive; three-dimensional functioning knows objects with interior spaces into which one can project and from which one can take in; and four-dimensional functioning adds time, development and the acceptance of separateness.
Development
1975
introduced by Donald Meltzer
Meltzer's model ranks mental life by the dimensions of its objects and self: one-dimensional (autistic), two-dimensional (surfaces without inner space), three-dimensional (containers that projective identification can enter), and four-dimensional (time and development).
In Explorations in Autism: A Psycho-Analytical Study (1975)
Relations
- 1975 introduced by Donald Meltzer
Meltzer's model ranks mental life by the dimensions of its objects and self: one-dimensional (autistic), two-dimensional (surfaces without inner space), three-dimensional (containers that projective identification can enter), and four-dimensional (time and development).
- gave rise to Adhesive identification
In Meltzer's scheme, adhesive identification is the typical way of relating in two-dimensional mental functioning, where objects are felt as surfaces only.
Works
- 1975
Explorations in Autism: A Psycho-Analytical Study
The report of a research group of child psychotherapists, led by Meltzer with John Bremner, Shirley Hoxter, Doreen Weddell and Isca Wittenberg, on the intensive analysis of four autistic children, Timmy, John, Barry and Piffie. Meltzer's theoretical chapters describe autism proper as a mindless state brought about by dismantling, a passive suspension of attention that lets the self come apart along the lines of the senses. Post-autistic states are marked by two-dimensional, surface-to-surface relating and by adhesive identification, Esther Bick's term, which first appeared in print in Meltzer's writings of this year. The cases also reveal a disturbed geography of the life-space, which the publisher calls the geography of the internal mother and which later shaped Meltzer's theory of the claustrum. A chapter on dimensionality in mental functioning ranks one-, two-, three- and four-dimensional ways of relating to objects, space and time; the publisher presents it as the first theory of dimensionality in psychoanalysis.
See also
People
References
- Explorations in Autism: A Psycho-Analytical Study1975Evidence for a relation