ABSTRACT
Although Kleinian analysts take it for granted that a distinctive technique is basic to the Kleinian approach, comparatively little has been written about this technique in its own right until very recently. This dearth of papers on technique has occurred partly because Kleinian analysts were preoccupied with other areas of research, but perhaps also because it was thought for some time that it was novelty of content rather than novelty of method that makes Kleinian work distinctive. Thus, for example, in a paper specifically entitled ‘Melanie Klein's technique’ (1967) Segal describes the essentials of Klein's technique in less than one page and then spends the rest of the paper describing the effect of Klein's novel theories. The impression one gets from this paper is that the distinctive features of technique are so enmeshed with the distinctive features of clinical content that they cannot be usefully disentangled. Recently, however, there has been increased discussion among Kleinian analysts of problems specifically concerning technique, even though comparatively little of this discussion has been published as yet.
