Psychoanalyse • Psychotherapie • Coaching • Dr. Gunnar Reefschläger

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Psychoanalyse • Psychotherapie • Coaching • Dr. Gunnar Reefschläger

Psychoanalyse, tiefenpsychologische Therapie und Gruppentherapie für gesetzlich Versicherte Was gibt es für Therapiemöglichkeiten?

Dr. Reefschläger bietet analytische , tiefenpsychologisch fundierte Psychotherapie, Psychoanalyse, Beratung, Coaching, Präventionsseminare und Weiteres in Seiner Praxis in Aschaffenburg an. Beratung zu, Thema „Psychotherapie“:
Brauche ich eine Psychotherapie? Welche Therapieformen werden von der Krankenkasse bezahlt? Bräuchte ich oder mein Partner eine Therapie? Was muss ich tun, um eine Psychotherapie zu beginnen? Was ist der Unterschied zwischen Psychologe, Psychotherapeut und Psychiater? Brauche ich eine Einzeltherapie oder eine Gruppentherapie? . . . . . . Beim Thema Psychotherapie haben Versicherte viele Fragen, mit denen sie alleine gelassen werden. Dies fängt bereits bei Ärzten und Kliniken an, die den Versicherten oftmals unzureichend über das Thema Psychotherapie aufklären. Dr. Gunnar Reefschläger bietet Ihnen mit seiner „Psychotherapie“-Beratung eine Möglichkeit zur Orientierung in diesem relativ jungen, medizinischen Feld. Mehr Informationen zu den Leistungen Dr. phil Dipl.-Psych. Gunnar Reefschlägers finden Sie unter www.psychologe-aschaffenburg.de

23/07/2025

In Kleinian theory, phantasies (with a ph, to distinguish from conscious fantasies) are unconscious mental representations - primitive, pre-verbal imaginations or dramatizations that arise from instinctual drives, especially the life (Eros) and death (Thanatos) instincts.

According to Klein, the mother’s breast - often the first object of satisfaction, frustration, and ambivalence - becomes the prototype for all later mental representations of others (“objects”). The infant projects love, hate, greed, envy, and anxiety onto the breast, forming the core of later object relations.

In Kleinian Terms: All subsequent relations with people and with the world are colored by the infant’s phantasies about the breast - whether it is good or bad, whether it gives or withholds, whether it is loved or hated.
(paraphrased from The Psychoanalysis of Children)

16/07/2025

Klein believed that from the earliest stages of life, a baby does not experience the world in a neutral or purely positive way. Instead, the baby experiences ambivalence - holding both love and hate toward the same object (usually the mother or the breast).

When a baby feels frustration- say, from a hungry cry not being answered quickly - it may hate the very same breast or mother it also loves when its needs are met. This contradiction gives rise to internal conflict, but Klein argued that:
- Love is not destroyed by hate.
- In fact, the ability to tolerate ambivalence (loving someone even while also feeling angry with them) is a key developmental milestone.
- The resolution of hate through love and reparation actually deepens love.

Klein saw this dynamic in what she called the “depressive position” - a stage where the infant becomes aware that the “good breast” and “bad breast” are the same person. This realization causes guilt and a desire to repair the harm done in phantasy. This process of reparation strengthens emotional bonds and intensifies the infant’s capacity for real, mature love.

So, in simpler terms: We come to love more deeply not by avoiding conflict, but by working through the inner tensions of love and hate toward the people we care about.

29/06/2025

This quote encapsulates one of the most fundamental and controversial aspects of Klein’s metapsychology: her development and elaboration of Freud’s death instinct concept.

Freud introduced the idea of the death drive (Thanatos) in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), proposing a counterforce to the life drive (Eros). Klein radically expanded this idea, positing that from birth, the psyche is shaped by a dynamic struggle between:
- The life instinct – constructive, loving, binding, and reparative forces.
- The death instinct – destructive, envious, and aggressive forces.

Klein believed that these instincts operate from the very beginning of life, not just post-traumatically, and that anxiety arises primarily from the internal activity of the death instinct.

Klein argued that primitive anxiety—especially in infancy—is generated by fears of internal annihilation caused by internal destructive impulses. This is not primarily fear of the external world, but of internal processes:
- The infant’s unconscious phantasies of attacking and destroying the good object (e.g. the mother’s breast) generate guilt and fear of retaliation.
- These destructive phantasies are fueled by the death instinct.
So, anxiety is not accidental or merely reactive—it is the psyche’s response to internal aggression.

Klein’s model helps explain why some individuals, even in the presence of love or support, remain deeply anxious, envious, or persecuted. It suggests that:
- These individuals may be struggling with dominant internal aggression that overwhelms their life instincts.
- Effective therapeutic work involves strengthening the life instincts: supporting the ego’s capacity for love, symbolization, and reparation.

This is not about eradicating aggression but helping the patient live with it and limit its power.

20/06/2025

Klein believed that the child - and later, the adult - moves constantly between feelings of:
- Love and hate
- Joy and sorrow
- Gratitude and envy
- Safety and persecution

These opposites coexist in varying degrees and intensity. They are not pathological in themselves; rather, they are core features of emotional life, especially in the early stages of development and during regression in therapy.

Klein stresses that a good interpretation isn’t merely about offering insight or intellectual understanding. Instead, it must:
- Track the patient’s moment-to-moment internal states
- Reflect the emotional rhythm of the patient’s oscillation between love and hate
- Respect the patient’s current ego capacity and emotional tolerability

For example, when a patient shifts from gratitude toward the therapist to suspicion and persecutory fear, the interpretation must acknowledge and validate these shifts without judgment or premature integration.

This quote implies a warning against overly rational or overly “positive” interpretations. If the analyst ignores the darker, persecutory feelings and only supports love or happiness, they risk repeating early splits and reinforcing denial or idealization.

True therapeutic work involves sitting with contradictions: holding space for the patient to feel both love and hate toward the same object (often the analyst), without forcing resolution too quickly.

13/06/2025

In early infancy, the ego deals with overwhelming anxieties (especially from the death instinct) by splitting objects (e.g., the mother) into “good” and “bad” parts:
- The good object (e.g., a soothing breast) is idealized.
- The bad object (e.g., a frustrating breast) is vilified and expelled through projection.

This helps the infant manage ambivalence and fear by not having to hold contradictory feelings toward a single object.

Klein’s critical point here is that the act of splitting is not limited to external or internal objects alone. The ego itself also splits in order to manage this division. That is, one part of the ego aligns with the good object and idealized feelings (love, gratitude), while another aligns with the bad object and persecutory anxieties (hate, envy, aggression).

Thus: Split objects create a split ego. There is no such thing as a purely external division; it has intrapersonal consequences.

In pathological cases (e.g., schizoid or borderline functioning), these splits remain rigid, leading to fragmented self-experience, where the person cannot reconcile their own good and bad parts. Therapy aims to facilitate integration - bringing the split parts of ego and object back into a more coherent whole.

09/06/2025

According to Klein, around the 5th - 6th month of life, infants transition from a paranoid-schizoid stance - where objects are split into “all good” or “all bad” - into the depressive position, recognizing their primary object (e.g., the mother) as a whole person capable of both gratifying and frustrating the child.

In this depressive phase, the infant internalizes destructive fantasies directed toward the loved object. This is no longer a split-off part but a cohesive realization: “I both love and hate her.” That awareness brings forth intense guilt.

This emotional depth triggers intense guilt and a simultaneous, urgent impulse to repair the ‘damage’ done. Klein considered this reparation essential to psychological maturation. She emphasized it’s both “impossible to satisfy” - it’s not a one-time fix - and yet vital, thus weaving repair into the core of mental development.

31/05/2025

This quote comes from Winnicott’s psychoanalytic paper “Hate in the Counter-Transference,” in which he speaks candidly - especially for his time - about the emotional reality of mothers and therapists. He explores the idea that hate is a normal and even necessary part of caregiving, and that acknowledging this emotion is more honest and therapeutic than denying it.

By saying “the mother hates the baby from the word go,” Winnicott does not mean the mother consciously or globally dislikes her child. Rather, he’s naming the accumulated frustrations, resentments, and physical/emotional demands placed on a caregiver that often go unspoken.

He continues in the same essay to list reasons why a mother might “hate” her baby, such as:
• The baby is ruthless, takes without concern.
• The baby wakes the mother up repeatedly.
• The baby interferes with her s*x life.
• The baby requires constant attention and gives no thanks.
• The baby has no manners, and cannot reciprocate emotionally at first.

Being emotionally aware of one‘s own hate reduces its influence by not acting it out.

16/05/2025

Winnicott distinguishes between mere existence and “feeling real.” For him, existing biologically — eating, breathing, functioning — isn’t the same as having a felt, authentic sense of being. This “realness” isn’t about being dramatic or visible to others. It’s a quiet, internal truth: a deep sense of “I am myself” — stable, alive, and emotionally grounded.

Winnicott is pointing to the subjective experience of selfhood.
Some people move through life without really feeling connected to themselves — they act based on expectations, roles, or survival instincts. He would call this a false self structure: someone may appear fine outwardly, but inwardly, feel hollow or unreal.

To feel real is to experience your thoughts, emotions, and actions as truly yours — not forced, not performed, but authentic. It’s the difference between “I’m supposed to say this” and “this is genuinely how I feel.”

In therapy, helping someone “feel real” might involve creating a space where they’re not judged, not required to perform — where they can explore who they are underneath survival adaptations.

In life, people might find realness in play, art, nature, intimacy — any space where they are free to be without needing to be “useful” or pleasing.

09/05/2025

Winnicott is making a profound observation about how an infant comes to know themselves — not intellectually, but emotionally and experientially. Before a baby can recognize themselves in a literal mirror (which typically happens around 18 months of age), they “see” themselves reflected in their caregiver’s face, especially the mother (or primary attachment figure).

In simpler terms: The mother’s face “mirrors” the baby’s emotional state back to them.
If the baby smiles, and the mother smiles back, the baby starts to understand: I exist, I affect others, I am seen.
If the baby is upset and the mother responds with concern and soothing, the baby learns that emotions are recognized and can be held by another.

This kind of mirroring is how a sense of self begins to form.

02/05/2025

Winnicott touches on the psychological weight behind identity by stating his thoughts. He is not saying that asserting one’s existence is inherently bad — in fact, establishing a sense of self is crucial in his theories. However, when someone asserts “I AM” too rigidly or too forcefully, it can come from a place of defensive certainty, as if the person is shutting out ambiguity, vulnerability, or relational interdependence.

In psychoanalysis, over-identifying with a fixed self (“I am this, and only this”) can block development, emotional flexibility, or empathy. Moreover, Winnicott might be suggesting that the assertion of “I AM” can be aggressive when it’s used to dominate, define others, or deny change — rather than being a gentle discovery of self within relationships.

25/04/2025

Here, Winnicott reflects a deeply human — and deeply therapeutic — insight: not all psychological pain or personal problems have clear-cut solutions. Instead of seeking to “fix” ourselves completely, he encourages us to live with our issues, to stay present with them, and to allow time to do its subtle work.

This aligns with his overall approach to psychoanalysis as a space for emotional holding, not fixing. He believed that psychological growth comes from feeling understood and held — especially in the context of a secure relationship — rather than from being given answers.

One can say that Winnicott speaks about patience, self-compassion, and the belief that transformation is more organic than mechanical. It’s not about forcing change, but allowing it to emerge through lived experience, reflection, and emotional honesty.

18/04/2025

At first glance, Winnicott‘s statement might seem like a trait of isolation or independence. But for Winnicott, the ability to be alone doesn’t mean emotional detachment—it means the ability to feel secure and at peace when alone, without being overwhelmed by fear, emptiness, or internal chaos. A person who can be alone without distress has an inner sense of security and self-cohesion. This allows for reflection, creativity, rest, and self-possession.

Winnicott’s focus is on reliability and attunement—a caregiver who is consistently there, emotionally available, and responsive to the infant’s needs. When the child experiences this “holding environment”, they gradually feel safe enough to be alone in the presence of the caregiver, and eventually, to be alone on their own—with that inner presence still felt.

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