On Mending the Split: Lost Innocence

What does it mean to be whole, to have integrity? One thing it means, obviously, is not to be partial or divided. In psychoanalytic terms, it means no longer being split. Psychoanalyst Melanie Klein famously called this developmental milestone the depressive position. This short note suggests why that’s an apt name for it, using an example to which many of us can relate.

Many Americans, especially those born in the era from the early 1900s to the 60s, grew up with an idealized view of the United States. Parents, teachers, and history books generally told the story of how we’d saved the world from the Nazis, fascists, and imperialists. As the story goes, ours was a youthful, optimistic, energetic culture, eagerly spreading our entrepreneurial spirit around the world, seeding capitalism and defending democracy against tyrannical forces.

For my parents and others of this era, the rise of antidemocratic and authoritarian behavior in the Republican party, and the enabling of people like President Trump, has been heartbreaking. My mother recently told me she feels incredibly sad (there’s the “depressive” position) because she’s watching her country go from being a hero to a villain of the sort she grew up believing the US stood so firmly against.

I get it, having been raised on much the same story. But in fact, the US—like every other country, and just about every person populating every country—was never wholly hero or villain in the first place. To imagine otherwise is to be split or partial in our understanding. In the case of the US, going into the history of slavery and racism is enough to end the illusion that we were ever wholly innocent and good. But it doesn’t mean we’re bad either. The reality is more complicated.

Melanie Klein called the place we’re living when we heal the split the depressive position. This achievement results from relinquishing the position that had split the world and individuals (and political parties and countries etc) into good and bad. Growing up, however, means learning that things are mostly some ratio of both. It’s not called “depressive” because this is a depressing truth, but to acknowledge the grief that comes from abandoning our split-off ways, grief to know things are not simply good nor bad, and thus that one’s country is also not as good or as bad as we might have imagined. There’s lost innocence to mourn.

For philosophers such as Plato and Hegel, and more recently for psychoanalysts such as Klein and Winnicott, dwelling (some of the time at least!) in this more comprehensive awareness is a mark of psychological maturity. It’s more hopeful than depressing inasmuch as it leads us away from extremes toward a more balanced, generous, and integrated view of ourselves and the world.