ABSTRACT
In 1941, the British Psychoanalytic Society entered into what has become known as the Controversial Discussions. The controversial discussions, in many ways, presaged debates that continued over the next several decades. This chapter demonstrates the particular way underlying attitudes about the possibility of objectivity permeated the theoretical discussions of phantasy in the Controversial Discussions. Melanie Klein was not always a controversial figure in British psychoanalysis. While her ideas on child analysis had aroused considerable dissent during her early years in Berlin, they found fertile ground when she arrived in London in 1926; by the end of the 1920s, Klein’s ideas had assumed some prominence in the British Society. These were the foundational ego psychological and Kleinian positions of the 1940s, as viewed in relief through the lens of the Controversial Discussions. After reading the controversial discussions, one can see the overwhelming importance of Freud at this historical juncture.
