Karl Abraham, The Origins of Projective Identification and The Day of Atonement

Abstract

Karl Abraham, one of Melanie Klein's analysts, undoubtedly influenced Klein in her clinical and theoretical thinking. Abraham was arguably the first analyst to focus on character, as well as the relationship between bodily experience and object relationships-central to the concept of projective identification. His writing on mourning (like Klein's, intensely personal) described identificatory processes with the lost object. In a lesser known essay, Abraham applied some of these ideas to the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. Through examination of this lesser known paper, this article describes how Abraham initiated ideas around the concept of projective identification, and then extends Abraham's early ideas to a more contemporary understanding of the concept. This extension represents a contemporary elaboration of a psychoanalytic contribution to a study of ritual, which was of great interest to many early psychoanalysts-among them, Abraham.

Keywords: Day of Atonement; Karl Abraham; Projective identification; Yom Kippur; ritual.