The psychic life of fragments: splitting from Ferenczi to Klein

The present paper starts from the reflection that there is a curious “phenomenological gap” in psychoanalysis when it comes to processes of splitting and to describing the “life” of psychic fragments resulting from processes of splitting. In simpler terms, we are often in a position to lack a precise understanding of what is being split and how the splitting occurs. I argue that although Melanie Klein’s work is often engaged when talking of splitting (particularly through discussions on identification, projection and projective identification), there are some important phenomenological opacities in her construction. I show that by orchestrating a dialogue between Melanie Klein and Sándor Ferenczi, we arrive at a fuller and more substantive conception of psychic splitting and of the psychic life of fragments which are the result of splitting. This is even more meaningful because there are some unacknowledged genealogical connections between Ferenczian concepts and Kleinian concepts, which I here explore. While with Klein we remain in the domain of “good” and “bad” objects—polarised objects which are constantly split and projected—with Ferenczi we are able to also give an account of complicated forms of imitation producing psychic fragments and with a “dark” side of identification, which he calls “identification with the aggressor”. While attempting to take steps toward imagining a dialogue between Klein and Ferenczi, I note a certain silent “Ferenczian turn” in a late text by Melanie Klein, “On the Development of Mental Functioning”, written in 1958. In particular, I reflect on her reference to some “terrifying figures” of the psyche, which cannot be accounted for simply as the persecutory parts of the super-ego but are instead more adequately read as more enigmatic and more primitive psychic fragments, resulting from processes of splitting

Passing through : negotiating identity, sexuality and movement in Ahmed Imamovic’s Go West

Bosnian director Ahmed Imamović’s 2005 film Go West, situated at the breakout of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the disintegration of Yugoslavia, follows an ethnically mixed gay couple as they attempt to escape war and gain entry to Europe. While hiding out in a small village in eastern Bosnia, Milan has his partner Kenan dress as a woman so that they can ‘pass’ as a married heterosexual couple. The notion of ‘passing’ and ‘passing through’ are some of the key themes in the film and will be the focal point of my analysis. My claim is that Go West’s emphasis on a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Europe lacks an intersectional understanding of power relations and directly influences the scope of (im)possible identities and sexualities that are presented in the film. Moreover, looking at how identity and sexuality are constructed and mediated in the film through the lens of ‘nesting orientalisms’ and ‘Balkanism,’ my aim is to bring to light an ideological duality that is created between the idea of a peaceful, liberated Europe and another Europe that always lags behind the West