<<The better state of mind which she posited and which Jack Nicholson might call �as good as it gets� is not really very wonderful. It consists of seeing life as a mixture of extreme emotions, involving less violent splitting, treating the objects of our feelings as whole, not as parts, and being motivated by a form of guilt which is reparative, not brittle and punitive. This state of mind, called the depressive position, is astringent and far from conventional ideas of happiness and cannot be maintained as a norm. We can only strive to be in it as much as can be managed. Klein�s view of human nature characterises humankind as more intense, fraught, troubled, nearer the edge, sometimes over ...

<<The better state of mind which she posited and which Jack Nicholson might call �as good as it gets� is not really very wonderful. It consists of seeing life as a mixture of extreme emotions, involving less violent splitting, treating the objects of our feelings as whole, not as parts, and being motivated by a form of guilt which is reparative, not brittle and punitive. This state of mind, called the depressive position, is astringent and far from conventional ideas of happiness and cannot be maintained as a norm. We can only strive to be in it as much as can be managed. Klein�s view of human nature characterises humankind as more intense, fraught, troubled, nearer the edge, sometimes over it, than the picture painted by other psychoanalysts. Life is harder, more painful, crazier, a perpetual struggle. Henryk Ibsen and Joseph Heller rather than �Mary Poppins� and �The Sound of Music�. Life �is not objective reality but a phantasmagoria peopled with our own fears and desires� (Grosskurth, 1985, p. 62), ruled more by the turmoil of the inner world than by neo-Freudian adaptations to the outer world.>>