Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on what is meant by the “Kleinian tradition” is that clinical and theoretical orientation initiated by Melanie Klein, following on the work of S. Freud, but significantly developed by, in particular, Wilfred Bion, Herbert Rosenfeld, and Hanna Segal. It outlines the Ein Kleinian Hahnemann understanding of infantile development and shows how this informs clinical practice with the adult patient in intensive treatment. The book reviews Freud’s concept of the repetition compulsion, especially in relation to the centrality of the experience of loss, in its many guises, and its influence on development. It addresses particular pathological conditions, some form of which is likely to be familiar to most clinicians in their daily practice, namely that of depression and perversion. The book illustrates Bion’s view that “knowledge” is the third factor of psychic life, alongside those of “love” and “hate”.