ABSTRACT
Melanie Klein had become widely recognised as one of Freud’s most original and important psychoanalytic successors. Her initial contribution grew from her early work with children in emotional difficulty, some of them very young and seriously disturbed, and her writings document her gradual discovery of a method of analysing children through providing a setting for the child to express him- or herself in play activities. Working as a child analyst gave her access to the nature of the child’s developing mind and led her to revise crucial aspects of psychoanalytic theory. She became convinced that the infant related actively to the maternal figure from birth onwards, though initially perceiving the mother in fragmentary ways rather than as a complete person. These partial experiences of mother were rooted in the many different aspects of early bodily care. This was a challenge to the belief that babies begin life in a state which is prior to relating to the world outside themselves – the psychoanalytic theory of a period of primary narcissism. Klein also found evidence in her work with very young children of a much earlier form of the superego – the judging function of the mind – than that described by Freud and linked by him to the resolution of the Oedipal preoccupations of the child aged around 5. She described vividly the ferocity of this early form of conscience by which a child could be tormented, suffering severe anxiety and guilt. Linked with this was her recognition of early precursors of the classical Oedipus complex. She was profoundly aware of the bodily roots of psychoanalytic theory, including Freud’s important discoveries about the sexual nature of young children.
