On our dependency for the Mother - which we can never give up

The ‘fear of losing’ emerges time and again in Klein: ‘There is ... in the unconscious mind a tendency to give [the mother] up, which is counteracted by the urgent desire to keep her for ever.’ 

This form of ambivalence emerges developmentally as an emotional bind when individuation isn’t complete. But since individuation is never complete, and dependency never really overcome, a broader ethical dilemma ensues.

It is a matter of recognising that dependency fundamentally defines us: it is something I never quite outgrow, no matter how old and how individuated I may seem. And it isn’t that you and I are the same; rather, it is that we invariably lean towards and on each other, and it is impossible to think about either of us without the other