ABSTRACT
Melanie Klein’s theories can go a long way towards explaining why feelings for a loved one can be so polarized, why love can so easily turn to hate, and why there can be felt to be so little security even where one is loved. In this chapter, the author explores those theories that emphasize a person’s inner world, a world dominated by the workings of fantasy. She deals with the contribution to the phenomenon of falling in love made by S. Freud’s psychodynamic theories, and then those made by Klein. Effectively, these narratives put an emphasis on a person’s disposition or character. In the process of uncovering the dynamics in the minds of patients suffering from “nervous diseases”, his new approach of “psycho-analysis”, he found that his female patients were falling in love with him. For Klein, the sheer power of any psychopathology, including psychosis, derives from its roots in primitive, early infantile experiences.
