Paula Hayman's Psychoanalytic Thinking Research

Paula Heimann (1899-1982) was a famous Germany-born English psychoanalyst. She firstly identified the actual value of counter-transference, and regarded it as the tool to explore the patients" unconscious. Two of her papers:Counter-transference and On counter-transference, were considered as the milestone works which changed peoples’view of counter-transference. She reinterpreted some concepts of classical Psychoanalysis from the perspective of objective relations theory, such as early development and cruelty. She emphasized the central role which nursing mother and environmental facilitation played in early development. She thought that the early development is an undifferentiated phase of development under conditions of maximal helplessness, when the mothering care provides life and death forces, and the self is experienced subjectively in somatic sensation which provide the matrix for the earliest psychic experiences and leave memory traces which she calls’somatic memory’. She stated that the somatic memory could be reactivated in later life as different emotional states.Heimann thought that human beings were endowed with two different kinds of aggression:one from phylogenetic sources serving survival, and another one, specific to human kind--namely, cruelty--the expression of the destructive instincts. According to her experience as a supervisor, she discussed some technical problem of Psychoanalysis, such as interpretation, transference, analysis situation and analysts’ attitude. She suggested the analysts to treat their patients naturally, and thought that analysts should be courageous, open, patient and perseverant. These qualities can help the analyst to find and explore patient’s deepest secrets, can also help to promote the development of analysis process and deepen the relationship between analyst and patient.Heimann’s contribution to psychoanalysis primarily cover developing the psychoanalytic treatment techniques, enriching the psychoanalytic theory and putting forward the constructive suggestions to analysts. The limitation of her theory lies in that relying on Freud’s theory too much that she can not form her own theory system. Furthermore, her theory about narcissism also had an important influence on the development of Self psychology.