Asi Soy Yo

International Forum of Psychoanalysis. 2006; 15: 117 Á/130

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

‘‘My graduation is my mother’s funeral’’: Transformation from the paranoid-schizoid to the depressive position in fear of success, and the role of the internal saboteur

SUSAN KAVALER-ADLER
115 East 9th Street, 12P, New York, New York 10003, USA

Abstract Freud’s conflation of neurotic and existential guilt ischallenged in this paper. A study of fear of success in a female analysand is presented that illustrates the resolution of this syndrome through a mourning process in which the neurotic guilt of Melanie Klein’s paranoid-schizoid position is transformed into the existential guilt of Klein’s depressive position. An evolution within the depressive-position existential guilt is seen as the analysandmourns and separates from an internal mother and father, who are hostile to her developmental needs. This evolution involves the transformation of an idealizing transference, symptomatically enacted through gradations of vicarious living through the analyst, being profoundly transformed into the analysand’s active creation of an identity in the world. Simultaneously, the internal world becomesalive in psychic fantasy. This transformation also involves the modification of an internal sabotaging psychic structure, which had been compelled by the dissociated punitive reaction of an internalized angry mother of separation trauma, employing the unconscious re-enactment of an early infant illness. Split-off envy and split-off selfsabotage become consciously owned through the grieving ofexistential guilt, as visceral experience is converted into symbolization.

Key words: Success, existential guilt, grief, developmental, mourning, saboteur, envy, symbolization, depressive position, success

Introduction Sigmund Freud first addressed the fear of success in his 1916 paper (later published in the Standard Edition in 1957) ‘‘Those Wrecked by Success.’’ In this paper, Freud distinguishesbetween an external satisfaction that is seen on a manifest level as the prize of success that consummates ambition and an ‘‘internal frustration’’ (Freud, 1916, p. 317). The ‘‘internal frustration’’ ‘‘wrecks’’ the experience of success, so that what was desired is no longer desirable once it is achieved. In speaking of the internal frustration that stymies, spoils, and undermines success, Freuddoes not distinguish between neurotic guilt and existential guilt. In fact, such a consideration did not emerge in psychoanalytic thinking until Melanie Klein used clinical findings to distinguish between the phenomenology of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions. Once

one is aware of the contrast between these two phenomenological psychic positions, one can distinguish between neuroticguilt, in which fears of retaliation predominate, and the existential guilt that manifests as grief when made conscious. In existential grief, actual remorse and compassion for a whole and separate other can be felt. These distinctions allow us to see the developmental progression in a case of ‘‘fear of success’’ and its resolution. Without these distinctions, Freud leaves us with a globalizingoedipal level view of unconscious guilt. He does not address the issue of existential guilt, yet he uses the word ‘‘remorse’’ loosely, which implies existential guilt as opposed to neurotic guilt. In fact, in his descriptions of Lady Macbeth in ‘‘Those Wrecked by Success,’’ he uses the word ‘‘remorse’’ twice:

Correspondence: Susan Kavaler-Adler, 115 East 9th Street, 12P, New York, NY 10003, USA.Tel: '1 212-674-5425. Fax: '1 718-638-3702. E-mail: / / Suska674@aol.com

ISSN 0803-706X print/ISSN 1651-2324 online # 2006 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/08037060600621746

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S. Kavaler-Adler transformations within varying gradients of the fear of success and its ultimate incomplete, but everevolving, resolution. It is also important to note that existential guilt is a grief, which...