ABSTRACT
Psychotherapist Marion Bower sets the scene: Clever and beautiful, Melitta Schmideberg was the eldest of Melanie Klein’s three children. By age 15 she had already been invited by her mother’s psychoanalyst, Sandor Ferenczi, to join the meetings of the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Society. Forced to leave Budapest by a ‘white terror’, Melitta eventually followed her mother to Berlin where she qualified both as a doctor and as a psychoanalyst. In 1910, however, life for the Kleins was looking distinctly good – with Arthur having secured a job in Budapest, a city that was then very much the glittering fin de siècle capital, with cafe life, concerts and opera. Within a short time Klein was in England building up her psychoanalytic practice. While Klein was now surrounded by a group of loyal supporters, the abrupt and humourless Melitta found it difficult to fit in and make friends.
