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KMID : 0385320050160010055
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Journal of Korean Psychoanalytic Society
2005 Volume.16 No. 1 p.55 ~ p.66
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Melanie Klein, Her Work in Context of Child Analysis
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Lee Man-Woo
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Abstract
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This article deals with Melanie Klein’s life and her work in the context of child analysis. At half a century’s distance it is now possible to re-examine her extraordinary life, personality and ideas with a more dispassionate stance. The historical and professional context in which she worked is an essential part of understanding her thinking, especially as it shows her to have been deeply inspired by the collegial group which at times proved to be so troublesome to her. Her further research into the area of primitive psychical activity was of an extraordinarily intuitive depth and range. She was ultimately able to offer a vision of human experience which accounted for a range of mental states, from normality and health all the way to the severe mental illnesses of schizophrenia and manic-depressive psychosis. As part of this process Klein addressed the common human miseries of depression, envy, jealousy, obsessional behaviour, anxiety, suspiciousness and other affects which crucially effect the fluctuations of our everyday existence. Thus, as well as articulating the power of human emotionality, Klein’s theory has illuminated in a unique way the many poignant personal scenarios hidden in our daily moods. With such an ambitious agenda, it is not altogether surprising that instead of being received with enthusiasm, or at the very least interest, Klein’s work provoked reservations and hostility from the established psychoanalytic community. Her fraught career was repeatedly shaken by confrontational struggles (especially with Anna Freud), which nearly cost her the professional membership on which her psychoanalytic practice depended. The fact that ground-breaking work causes controversy is not altogether remarkable. Original thinking tends to thrive in a climate of intellectual exchange and interaction, and the history of ideas owes much to passionate debates which helped to shape creative thinking. Klein aspired to far greater rigour and to conditions which would isolate as much as possible her object of study. Her radical solution to this was to adopt the structure of the adult psychoanalytic session in her work with children. This culminated in a session framework which focused on individual, confidential work from which parents were kept away, and in which ordinary educative judgements were suspended. At the same time, the children were offered a range of play materials without the usual exhortations, suggestions or guidance that they normally expect from adults. This framework partly recreated the natural conditions of playing alone. Klein encouraged the revelations that might emerge from this freedom by remaining a neutral, non-judgemental presence who was prepared to discuss normally forbidden subjects in plain nursery language. In retrospect it became clear that these rudimentary measures yielded impressive results. The children with whom Klein worked grasped the significance of the conditions offered to them and revealed to her a great deal of their inner styles. Klein was able to record their communications and build her theories on this basis. The most valuable aspect of her child patients’ communications during this initial period was undoubtedly their strikingly uninhibited content, which gave Klein crucial insights into the most archaic fantasies and processes in the human mind. An evaluation of Klein’s contribution is not possible without attention to some of its areas of lack. It is therefore also worthwhile to take account of ways in which her theory falls short, whether in terms of its own internal logic, or in terms of expectations. The scope of this examination is leaded to the critiques of Lacanian psychoanalysts, one group of the next generations of Kleinian psychoanalysis. Because of the particular context in which Klein’s thinking reached maturation, she had no complex awareness of the role of language in mental life. She also made no attempt to offer a comprehensive account of cognitive development. While she did have revolutionary and original ideas on different stages of cognitive awareness and on the primitive roots of cognition, the actual factor that propels mental growth, or what was, in her terms, the drive towards integration, remains a mysterious process and a secret of nature. As far as she was concerned, her insights were intended not to account for this process, but to illuminate how it is either impeded by anxiety and aggression, or aided by the instincts of life, curiosity and love. Indeed, it is necessary to bear in mind that Klein did not regard herself as offering an all-encompassing theory of the mind, a new epistemology or a wholesale alternative to Freudian metapsychology. She thought of herself as adding some dimensions to the Freudian theory of her day, and as responding to the ideas and challenges of other colleagues who were also trying to do so. All her research was propelled by clinical imperatives, and it is these that delineate the scope of her theoretical reach.
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KEYWORD
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Melanie Klein, Anna Freud, Child analysis, Play technique, Object relations, Unconscious phantasy, Controversial discussions
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