Introduction

The technique of child analysis that Melanie Klein developed was the beginning of a psychoanalytic revolution and gradually led her to changes and development not only of a new technique but also of new theories. In this book I describe my research into the very early period of Klein’s work in which she developed the play technique and the most basic of her new insights into early development. I discuss the development of her method of child analysis through examining the clinical case notes of four of her early child analyses in Berlin, which I compare with her unpublished manuscripts and later published papers on these same four children.