ABSTRACT
This chapter covers Klein’s contributions from 1921–1945. It was Klein’s view that our educational systems and parental patterns caused children to defend against their phantasy life, which would be a main source of creativity. Klein initially felt that she derived this view from Freud. She maintains that superego identifications are often contradictory in nature, and exist side by side without being integrated. It was initially Klein’s views on child analysis that brought her into conflict with Anna Freud. Klein maintained that children were capable of transference reactions and of maintaining a transference neurosis, while Anna Freud’s views were quite different concerning the treatment of young children. Klein, in following and extending a Freudian percept, is thus realizing the full implications of Freud’s revolutionary theorizing. According to this percept, the child sees the world through bodily functions and activities and the child’s world is dominated by the mother and thoughts of, or, more usually, the actuality of, the mother’s body.
