Paranoid–schizoid position - a state of black and white thinking, where things are all good or all bad with no in between. Comes from the idea of fear and splitting. First developed by Melanie Klein to explain a stage of primitive psychological and emotional immaturity, through which the infant must pass to get to the depressive position. The position of empathy, guilt, remorse, understanding, sympathy, compassion.Under pressure people will flip back from the paranoid schizoid position to the depressive position depending on stress and anxiety. Large institutions are good at developing people’s paranoia -mostly unconsciously and people split as a defence mechanism in order to manage their environment psychically. Elizabeth Menzies-Lyth did a study of nurses working in a hospital and was able to illustrate Klein's ideas through her investigation.
Depressive position – A state of psychological and emotional maturity. First put forward by Melanie Klein. Empathy, understanding, sympathy are all depressive functions. The idea is that we can contain and hold ambivalent feelings about others in this position. It is grey thinking as opposed to black and white. We may not like a person’s behaviour, but we are able to still feel positively about the person. Melanie Klein believed that as young children we have to go through the paranoid-schizoid position in order to get to the depressive position and we flip back and forth between them as we experience stresses in life.
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