This document discusses Melanie Klein's object relations theory and Bion's ideas of containment and the thinking breast. It explores how the mother-infant relationship forms a model for containment, where the mother thinks for the infant and contains their anxieties. This containment is then internalized, allowing the infant to build their own capacity for understanding themselves. Later in life, the counselor can provide containment for clients, helping them process painful emotions and gradually internalize containment. As containment develops therapeutically, clients can better understand their feelings and thinking patterns.

1. 1
This essay will explore Melanie Kleins object relations theory and the
mother-infant relationship as being the model that highlighted Bion’s
‘idea of the container-contained’ (Ogden, 2004, p.1354), the ‘thinking
breast’ (Glover, 2009) and ‘reverie’ (Wikipedia, 2012). Leading
on from that is a discussion demonstrating an understanding of how
containment is incorporated into the client/counsellor relationship.
Finally the essay will discuss how the client internalises containment
and the long term therapeutic effect of its growth.
Melanie Klein, one of the early object-relations theorists, recognised
that a baby, being totally dependent on his mother, lives in a
contradictory world that constantly switches between feelings of love
and hate, pleasure and unease and ‘experiences of integration and
disintegration’ (Waddell, 2002, p.29). Klein believed that by the mother
being attentive, holding the baby, talking calmly, giving him eye contact,
providing warmth and feelings of security whilst feeding him, the baby
will introject the ‘experience of being loved’ (Waddell, 2002, p.29) and
understood, giving him a ‘positive image’ (Jacobs, 2010, p.114) of how
he sees others and himself. Being deprived of a good ‘feeding
relationship’ (Waddell, 2002, p.43) by too long an absence from the
mother can cause the baby frustration and pain. ‘When the mother
eventually comes to feed him, he may not see her as someone to get
comfort from but instead as an opportunity to project his “bad” internal
object into’ (Hinshelwood & Robinson, 2011, p.124).

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Bion highlighted and revised ‘Klein’s concept of projective
identification’ (Ogden, 2004, p.1357) within the ‘mother-infant
relationship’ (Ogden, 2004, p.1357) with his model of the ‘container
-contained’ (Ogden, 2004, p.1359) and the (mother) ‘thinking breast’
(Glover, 2009) the process of which is called ‘containment’
(Casement, 1985, p.133). ‘Whereas Klein’s
thinking the breast had stood as a metaphor for primary maternal
functions – those of feeding, gratifying, satisfying, with Bion, it stood as
a metaphor for the mind’ (Waddell, 2005, p:30). ‘The baby projects his
anxieties, his emotional experience into his mother which he is unable
to process on his own. The mother then does the unconscious
psychological work and thinks for the baby’ (Ogden, 2004, p.1357).
Holding her own anxieties, the mother ‘who acts as a container for
the child’s fears’ (Glover, 2009), engages with her
crying baby both consciously and unconsciously, calmly and gently,
working through a series of events to decipher what the cries
communicate (Waddell, 2005). The mother then dilutes baby’s
feelings of anxiety, worry, frustration even pain and gives them back
to him which he introjects in a more palatable way (Glover, 2009). By
thinking for the baby and giving them back in a ‘de-toxified’
(Glover, 2009) way the mother is saying to her baby that she has
listened, heard and understood what he is emotionally and physically

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experiencing (Waddell, 2005). ‘Initially the mother thinks for the infant.
Slowly the infant learns to perform that function for himself ‘(Waddell,
2005, p.35). Bion called the mothers ‘capacity to sense and make
sense of what is going on inside the infant’ (Wikipedia, 2012) ‘reverie’
(Wikipedia, 2012).
As a consequence of the mother containing her baby, he then
internalizes these soothing, rational ways of dealing with his own
chaotic feelings and experiences. Containment is an integral part of
the baby building a strong ‘internal frame of reference’ (Hough, 2012,
p.44) of love, confidence, trust; of being understood and heard. The
baby becomes familiar with his own thought processes and personality,
recognising different aspects of himself (Waddell, 2005).
When containment was poor as a child, the client may look for a
person, that external object; to help make sense of the inner turmoil
they are experiencing (Casement, 1985). In later life, one of the
external figures they may turn to for help is a counsellor as some
clients may find it extremely hard to work through emotional issues and
situations by themselves (Casement, 1985).
The counsellor can contain the client by identifying the client’s inability
to stay with their painful emotions and feelings and think with the client,
calmly listening, reflecting back and making well timed interpretations

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(Casement, 1985). This psychodynamic process gently and gradually
brings the unconscious in to the conscious at a pace the client can
tolerate (Casement, 1985). The counsellor’s room is a sanctuary and a
safe place for the client to stay in the ‘here-and-now, in this space’
(Yalom, 2011, p.47) to think and unravel their internal world of chaos
and confusion.
In some cases, the clients’ inability to handle their feelings may be dealt
with by suppression or avoidance (Casement, 1985). This can get the
client through their current issue; what is needed on a long term basis
is an understanding of how to contain such dominant, penetrating
feelings that seem totally uncontrollable without help (Casement, 1985).
During the process of working through these feelings with the
counsellor, the client’s transference may be to act out, challenging the
counsellor’s ability to hold back their own feelings, their
countertransference, so that they can successfully contain the client. A
client who has continuously and unsuccessfully sought containment
from previous relationships may feel uncontainable and both the
counsellor and the client will have to work exceptionally hard to build a
trusting relationship that the client will understand (Casement, 1985).
As the client internalises containment, they can gradually begin to feel
safe enough to identify repetitive patterns of intense feelings as they
emerge, staying with them however painful (Casement, 1985).

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Bion’s theory on containment describes the mother’s ability to think for
the baby as being the basis of the baby’s thinking capacity and
understanding who they are (Waddell, 2005). Bion likens the mother-
infant relationship to what ‘occurs at an unconscious level in the
analytic relationship’ (Ogden, 2004, p.1357). This essay has shown
that if containment was absent as a baby, the long term therapeutic
effects of being successfully contained in the psychodynamic
client/counsellor relationship can be internalised, developing the client’s
capacity to understand different aspects of themselves; to be able to
think and feel his life experiences as and when they arise and not
suppress them (Casement, 1985). The growth of containment within
the therapeutic relationship enables the client to be independent of the
counsellor in developing their own thinking process and depth of
feelings (Ogden, 2004) ‘to past and present experiences and to do the
unconscious psychological work [on their own]’ (Ogden, 2004, p.1359)
‘[by] address[ing] not what [they] think but the way [they] think it and
how [they] process [their] lived experiences’ (Ogden, 2004, p.1354).