Development of Psychoanalytic Thought & Theory

Fourth Year Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2020-21, 2nd Trimester — Fridays, 3:30-5:00pm
Julie Wood, MA
Melissa Stoker, MS

View Whole Syllabus

December 11, 2020 — London: Anna Freud and Melanie Klein

[32 pages]

London became one of the early centers of psychoanalysis (just behind Vienna and Berlin).  Many Jewish analysts, like Freud, moved to London to escape the Nazis.  One of the dominant events that shaped psychoanalysis in London, and its spread beyond, was the polarizing debate between Melanie Klein, who came to London in 1926, and Anna Freud, who arrived 12 years later in 1938, after fleeing the Nazis.

We’ve chosen readings from the early 1920s, before Klein and Anna Freud had to share a city and a Society, when the differences between their respective approaches to child analysis were first being fleshed out.  Theoretical differences, which are somewhat evident here, in the following years will become weighted with political (and personality?) differences, leading to the “Controversial Discussions” from 1942-44, and the near split of the British Society.

Klein, M. (1927). Symposium on Child-Analysis. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 8:339-370.

Freud, A. (1926). The Psycho-analytical Treatment of Children. pp ix-27.

Optional Reading

Freud, A. (1966). A Short History of Child Analysis. Psychoanal. St. Child, 21:7-14.

Klein, M. (1952). The Origins of Transference, Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 33:433-438.

King, P. and Steiner, R. (1991). The Freud–Klein Controversies 1941–45. New Lib. of Psycho-Anal., 11:1-942.

Likierman, M. (1995). The Debate Between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein: An Historical Survey. J. Child Psychother., 21(3):313-325.