Psychic Retreats: Pathological Organizations in Psychotic, Neurotic and Borderline Patients

Essentially clinical in its approach, Psychic Retreats discusses the problem of patients who are 'stuck' and with whom it is difficult to make meaningful contact. John Steiner, an experienced psychoanalyst, uses new developments in Kleinian theory to explain how this happens.

He examines the way object relationships and defences can be organized into complex structures which lead to a personality and an analysis becoming rigid and stuck, with little opportunity for development or change. The...