Melanie Klein in Berlin

Her First Psychoanalyses of Children

  • Price: $39.95 $35.96
  • Paperback: 504 pages
  • Also available in Hardback and e-Book
  • Published: March 2009
  • ISBN: 978-0-415-48498-5
  • Publisher: Routledge

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Part of the New Library of Psychoanalysis series

In this book Claudia Frank discusses how Melanie Klein began to develop her psychoanalysis of children. Melanie Klein in Berlin: Her First Psychoanalyses of Children offers a detailed comparative analysis of both published and unpublished material from the Melanie Klein Archives.

By using previously unpublished studies, Frank demonstrates how Klein enriched the concept of negative transference and laid the basis for the innovations on both technique and theory that eventually led not only to changes in child analysis, but also to changes in the analysis of adults. Frank also uncovers the influence that this had on Klein's later theories of the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, and on her understanding of psychotic anxieties.

The first seven chapters in the book provide an explanation of the essence of Klein's approach to child psychoanalysis covering topics including:

  • the inevitability and usefulness of negative transference
  • development of play
  • early conscious and unconscious phantasies.

Part two provides a translation of Klein's unpublished notes on the treatments of four of the children she analysed in Berlin: 7-year-old Grete, 2-year-old Rita, 7-year-old Inge and 6-year-old Erna.

Melanie Klein in Berlin is the first text to make extensive use of Klein's unpublished papers, clinical notes, diaries and manuscripts. It will appeal to anyone involved in child psychoanalysis and the development of Melanie Klein's thinking.

Table of Contents

Spillius, Preface. Part I. Introduction. Melanie Klein's Psychoanalytic Clinical Work in Berlin. Grete: One of Melanie Klein's Very First Little Girl Patients in Berlin. Rita: Klein's Youngest Patient. The Beginning of the Play Technique: Inge and, perhaps, Ernst? Erna: The Most Extensive Child Analysis of the Berlin Years. Conclusion. Part II. Notes to this Edition. Treatment Notes on Grete. Treatment Notes on Rita. Treatment Notes on Inge. Treatment Notes on Erna. Bibliography

Reviews

‘This book is the work of a true scholar. And we all have much reason to thank Claudia for making us aware of the results of her meticulous comparison of Klein’s published papers, her unpublished papers and her clinical treatment notes’ – Elizabeth Spillius, from the Preface

"Highly erudite…an in-depth summary of Klein's theory and technical methods. A thoroughly researched book that will be of greatest use ot Kleinian scholars but also will be of interest to seasoned psychoanalytic practitioners as well as those who teach child analysis in psychoanalytic institutes. I highly recommend Frank's book to this audience." -Christine C. Kieffer in PsycCRITIQUES

Author Biography

Claudia Frank is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Stuttgart. She is a training analyst of the DPV, a constituent society of the International Psychoanalytic Association. Until 2001 she was Chair of Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics in the Department for Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics of the University in Tübingen. She has published papers on the technique, theory and history of psychoanalysis as well as on applied psychoanalysis. She is co-editor of the Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse.