Love, Guilt and Reparation

A collection of papers by the pioneering psychologist Melanie Klein written between 1921 and 1945 and investigating the impact of infant anxieties upon child development.

Klein's ideas about children, along with her many innovations in adult therapy, placed her in the top ranks of a group of 20th-century psychoanalysts who pioneered the study of early childhood psychology

Melanie Klein was born in Vienna in 1882. At about fourteen she decided to study medicine. With her brother's help she learned enough Greek and Latin to pass into the Gymnasium. But her early engagement and subsequent marriage in 1903 brought a halt to her plans. Years later, discovering a booklet on dreams by Freud, she turned her attention to psychoanalysis. At this time she was living in Budapest and began her own analysis with Ferenczi, who encouraged her interest in the analysis of children. In 1921 she moved to Berlin to continue her work with children, supported by Dr Karl Abraham. In 1926 she moved to London where she worked and lived until her death in 1960.

Love, Guilt and Reparation shows the growth of Melanie Klein`s work and ideas between 1921 and 1945. 
 
The earlier papers reveal her intense proccupation with the impact of infant anxieties upon child development. She traces these influences on criminality and childhood psychosis, symbol formation and intellectual inhibition and the early development of conscience. In the final paper on the Oedipus complex, Klein develops her theories of the earliest infant stages of development, extending Freud`s analysis of the Oedipus complex and laying a basis for her own subsequent conceptualising of the paranoid-schizoid position in the first six months of life. 
 
The volume also contains a foreward by Dr Hanna Segal and explanatory notes by the Editorial Board of the Melanie Klein Trust.

Envy And Gratitude And Other Works 1946-1963

A  collection of the last papers by the influential psychologist Melanie Klein, written between 1946 and 1963, and including her landmark essay on the paranoid-schizoid position.

A perfect introduction to Melanie Klein’s modern neuroscientific research. 
 
 Melanie Klein's writings, particularly on infant development and psychosis, have been crucial both to theoretical work and to clinical practice. Envy and Gratitude collects her writings from 1946 until her death in 1960, including two papers published posthumously. 
 
Klein's major paper, 'Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms', introduces the concept of the paranoid-schizoid position, in which the infant ego splits, projects and introjects its objects - most particularly the mother - during the first few months of life. Envy and Gratitude, her last major work, introduces her theory of primary envy.

The Psycho-Analysis of Children

This hugely influential volume from the pioneering Klein is a key text in the development of psychoanalysis.

The Psycho-Analysis of Children, first published in 1932, is a classic in its subject, and revolutionised child analysis. Melanie Klein had already proved, by the special technique she devised, that she was a pioneer in that branch of analysis. She made possible the extension of psycho-analysis to the field of early childhood, and in this way not only made the treatment of young children possible but also threw new light on psychological development in childhood and on the roots of adult neuroses and psychoses.

Melanie Klein

The Conduct of the Psycho-analysis of Children as Seen in the Treatment of a Ten Year Old Boy

Melanie Klein gives a detailed account of the analysis of a ten year old boy, Richard. Klein describes the day to day course of the analysis interpreting Richard`s drawing, play, verbal associations and reports of dreams. Also included is the reproduction of the drawings made by the patient, the analysis of which is elaborated in this text. 
 
This fascinating and deeply instructive case study shows the fluctuations which characterise a psycho-analysis and reveals the dynamics of the steps which eventually lead to progress in treatment. 
 
In a series of notes accompanying the clinical description, Melanie Klein comments upon the clinical material, linking the actual instances to more theoretical conclusions. In doing so, she has provided an invaluable guide to the technique of psycho-analysing children.

Melanie Klein

Praise for Narrative of a Child Analysis

Klein's ideas about children, along with her many innovations in adult therapy, placed her in the top ranks of a group of 20th-century psychoanalysts who pioneered the study of early childhood psychology

[A] seminal psychoanalytic thinker

Books by Melanie Klein

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter