Great question. To think about how Kleinian theory can be applied to Decolonial Psychotherapy, let’s work in steps — because these are two traditions with very different genealogies, but they can illuminate one another.
1. The Core of Kleinian Theory
- Unconscious phantasy: Klein emphasizes that unconscious phantasy (with a “ph”) underlies all relations — projections, introjections, splitting.
- Paranoid-schizoid vs. depressive positions:
- Paranoid-schizoid = splitting, projection, persecutory anxieties.
- Depressive = ambivalence, reparation, mourning, capacity to love.
- Internal objects: Early relations with part-objects (breast, caregiver, etc.) shape how external reality is perceived.
2. The Core of Decolonial Psychotherapy
- Argues that distress cannot be fully understood intrapsychically. It arises from colonial histories, structural violence, ongoing racism, capitalism, dispossession.
- Moves away from “inside the head” explanations, toward what David Smail called outsight: the wider socio-political field.
- The therapist’s role is not neutral interpretation, but witnessing, unmasking, co-regressing (as in your “Balint–Decolonial Mutual Co-Regression Model”).
3. Meeting Point: Where Klein and Decolonial Thought Intersect
- Projection & Coloniality: Colonizers historically projected their own fears and destructiveness onto colonized peoples (“savage,” “primitive”), just as in the paranoid-schizoid position. Decolonial psychotherapy can use Kleinian tools to analyze how colonial discourse itself is a structure of projective identification.
- Internalized Colonization: Colonized subjects may introject these destructive projections, leading to fractured self-representations (the “bad breast” within). Here Klein’s understanding of persecutory anxiety helps us understand the psychic scars of coloniality.
- From Splitting to Reparation: Decolonial work often involves helping communities move from positions of splitting/idealization (“we are all victims / they are all evil”) toward ambivalence and reparation — recognizing complexity without denying structural injustice. This parallels Klein’s depressive position, where mourning and reparation become possible.
- Mutual Co-regression: In Kleinian therapy, countertransference is central — the therapist must work through their own anxieties and projections. In Decolonial psychotherapy, this becomes mutual: therapist and client are both caught in colonial history, and both may regress together. This requires a Kleinian sensitivity to projection but with political reflexivity.
4. A Decolonial-Kleinian Practice Example
Imagine working with a client from a historically colonized background who experiences internal voices of “inadequacy” and “inferiority”:
- Kleinian lens: See this as persecutory internal objects, linked to early splitting and projection.
- Decolonial lens: Recognize that these objects are not only familial but also historical — products of systemic racism, colonial discourse, ongoing social marginalization.
- Integration: Therapy helps name these introjects as both psychic and political, moving toward a depressive position where mourning, reparation, and outsight become possible.
5. In a Sentence
👉 Applying Kleinian theory to Decolonial Psychotherapy means using concepts like projection, splitting, and the depressive position to understand how colonial power structures become internal objects — while insisting that the work of therapy must always return these psychic processes to their historical, political, and communal contexts.
Would you like me to expand this into a seminar note titled 〈Klein and Decolonial Psychotherapy: From Projection to Reparation〉 that could slot directly into your S12 (1140823) discussion?
