ABSTRACT
Klein’s writing was almost entirely focused on the clinical practice and theory of psychoanalysis, and was based largely on her experiences in the consulting room and on her engagement with the work of other psychoanalysts, whether as analysts, teachers or colleagues. Freud had sought to demonstrate the relevance of psychoanalytic conceptions and methods to almost the whole field of human civilisation and culture, although clinical practice with individual analysands remained for him at the centre of psychoanalysis. Over subsequent years, psychoanalysis became professionalised through the development of structured and regulated trainings, in which personal analysis, the transmission of theoretical principles and clinical supervision remained its central activities. None of Freud’s contemporaries and followers equalled him in his capacity and zeal to extend the field of application of psychoanalysis so widely, without straying from a primary commitment to psychoanalytic practice itself.
