Psychotic States: A Psycho-Analytical Approach

Rosenfeld's first book collects the papers he wrote between 1946 and 1964, from his first case report of a schizophrenic patient with depersonalization (1947) to his clinical paper on the psychopathology of narcissism (1964). Together they apply Melanie Klein's account of early anxieties and defences, above all splitting and projective identification, to the analysis of schizophrenia and to hypochondriasis, drug addiction, depression and manic-depressive states. The book argues that psychotic patients can be treated by interpretation within the analytic setting, because they form a transference of their own, a transference psychosis marked by massive projection onto the analyst. It also contains his account of confusional states (1950) and his first statement on narcissistic object relations. It was published in London by the Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, and in New York by International Universities Press.