ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a proposed new reading of some aspects of Melanie Klein's writings. It suggests that a reading of Kleinian theory from the point of view of affects makes for a better understanding both of this theory and of the affects. The chapter shows that some of the most central concepts in Klein's theory can be profitably read as a discourse on affects and their laws of functioning. The chapter explores the theoretical soil on which Klein's ideas grew. In 1923, Freud elaborated the concept of the ego. From being regarded as an entity that repudiates the drives, which were conceived as external to it, the ego came to be regarded as a complex structure possessing libidinal and aggressive energies of its own. Wilfred Bion's work appeared in the 1950s and continued. In a sense, it extended Klein's theory in some important directions.
