ABSTRACT
In her 1919 talk Klein detailed conversations with her 4-year-old son, Erich, whom she presented as though he were an unrelated analytic patient of hers. She referred to him as Fritz. Their talk together, as she detailed it, was similar to the interactions between babies and those looking after them described by Spielrein. It was also similar to Freud's account of his and his daughter Sophie's interaction with her son, Ernst, in interpreting his ‘o-o-o-o’ sounds, accompanying his throwing things away from him, as meaning ‘gone’. Just as Freud recommended analysts to supplement the analysand's free associations, when they prove insufficient or fail, with the knowledge of dream-symbolism which these associations evoke in them, Klein supplemented Erich's free associations, when they became inhibited, with the knowledge and ideas which they evoked in her.
