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(1966). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 47:335-342

The Relation of Anal Masturbation to Projective Identification

Donald Meltzer

Introduction

When attempting to relate some character traits of the 'Wolf Man' to his intestinal symptoms, Freud (1918) was forced to the conclusion that an anal theory of femininity and an 'identification' with his mother's menorrhagia had antedated the patient's castration theory of femininity. Until Melanie Klein's establishment of the concept of 'projective identification' it was assumed that such a process would have been due solely to introjection. In her original description (1946, p.300) of projective identification, Klein linked it very closely to anal processes but nowhere else in her written work has this connexion been made more explicit.

Furthermore, the contribution made by anality to character formation, as studied by Freud (1908), (1917), Abraham (1921), Jones (1913), (1918), Heimann (1962), and others, has always been stated in terms of the outcome in character structure of the so-called 'sublimation' of anal fantasies, in which the emphasis has rested on t

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