ABSTRACT
The Freud-Klein Controversies 1941-1945, edited by Pearl King and Riccardo Steiner, is a scrupulously detailed account of the struggle within the British Psychoanalytic Society over the ideas and practices of Melanie Klein. Both King and Steiner are members of the British Psychoanalytic Society, and inevitably they are trying to tidy up the story of their group. Anna Freud and Melanie Klein had led rival branches of child analysis since the 1920s. Then when the Freuds, along with their Viennese supporters, moved to London in 1938, the fat was in the fire. London was chosen for Freud, not Anna, since it was from her point of view a trouble spot. Switzerland was deemed Jung's territory; otherwise Freud might have safely chosen to go there instead while fleeing from the Nazis. Surely every student of Kleinianism will find The Freud-Klein Controversies indispensable. The volume is a truly remarkable achievement.
