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The Nature and Function of Phantasy
Read to the British Psycho-Analytical Society in 1943 as the opening paper of the Controversial Discussions, and later reprinted in Developments in Psycho-Analysis (1952).
What it shows
- 1943
Susan Isaacs developed Unconscious phantasy
In 'The Nature and Function of Phantasy', read in 1943 at the opening of the Controversial Discussions and published in 1948, Isaacs widened Freud's notion of unconscious phantasy: phantasy is the mental expression of every drive, is active from the beginning of life, and is the primary content of all unconscious mental processes.
Melanie Klein developed Unconscious phantasy
Isaacs credits Klein's analyses of young children with giving unconscious phantasy its growing weight; her own paper gave theoretical form to the concept as Klein used it.
Sigmund Freud introduced Unconscious phantasy
Isaacs traces the psychoanalytic sense of the term to Freud, who came to recognise phantasies that are unconscious; the wider Kleinian concept builds on his.
- 1943
Susan Isaacs developed Transference
Isaacs treats the transference as made almost wholly of unconscious phantasy, so that its changes in the session let the analyst read the patient's phantasies.
- 1943
Susan Isaacs developed Introjection
Isaacs distinguishes the abstract mechanism of introjection from the phantasy of incorporating an object, and treats the phantasy as the way the mechanism is lived by the subject.
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Melanie Klein influenced Susan Isaacs
Klein's ideas already shaped the Malting House School, which she visited in its first year, and Isaacs's theory of phantasy builds on Klein's clinical findings with young children.
Susan Isaacs collaborated with Melanie Klein
Isaacs worked with Klein on the Kleinian case in the Controversial Discussions and on the joint book Developments in Psycho-Analysis, published in 1952 after her death.
Susan Isaacs collaborated with Paula Heimann
Isaacs and Heimann wrote the chapter 'Regression' together for Developments in Psycho-Analysis (1952), the joint book of the Kleinian group.
Susan Isaacs collaborated with Joan Riviere
Besides being her analyst, Riviere was Isaacs's co-author in Developments in Psycho-Analysis (1952), which Riviere edited.
- 1943
Susan Isaacs disputed with Anna Freud
In the Controversial Discussions of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, Isaacs argued the Kleinian case against Anna Freud and her group; her paper on phantasy opened the scientific discussions in 1943.