ABSTRACT
Envy and Gratitude was Melanie Klein's major contribution to theory. In the last few years she had gradually reduced her clinical work, and by 1960 she had few patients in analysis, but she kept up all her other activities – supervisions, teaching at the Institute, private seminars. While Klein was working on the paper on envy she went through a phase of some depression and growing pessimism. She felt very unsure of the acceptance and survival of her own work, pessimistic about the future of psychoanalysis and more generally about the survival of values in the world. Major differences had developed between Paula Heimann and Klein, leading not only to disagreements but to personal resentment and bitterness on both sides. And, as with S. Freud, the threat of her own approaching death may have contributed to the fear about the survival of her work.
