The surprising modernity of Klein’s Lectures on Technique and Clinical Seminars: Putting them in context

ABSTRACT

Focusing on the vividness and modernity of Klein's 1936 lectures the author argues that Klein was very aware of the complexity of the transference-situation and the analyst's involvement in it. The Clinical Seminars of 1958 show that the concept of projective identification helped to further clarify her ideas and to anticipate later developments. Nevertheless she remaines sceptical about the counter-transference simply seen as a response to the patient's projections and warned against re-projecting it back into the patient.

KEYWORDS:

• transference-situation
• analytic attitude
• projective identification
• counter-transference

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Sandy Bourne, John Steiner and David Taylor for their encouragement to do this research.

Notes

1 A similar impression is conveyed in a teaching paper by James Strachey, recently published and commented in this journal (Rosnick 2017).

2 I would like to thank to thank the honorary archivist of the Klein Trust, Jane Milton, for this information. Further information about the Archive is available on the websites of the Wellcome Institute (https://klein-archive.tumblr.com) and the Melanie Klein Trust (www.melanie-klein-trust.org.uk/archive).

3 The concept was later on extended by Joseph (1985).

4 These lectures were held under the title “The Emotional Life of Civilized Men and Women” and published as a small volume Love, Hate and Reparation in 1937.

5 See also Spillius 2009, 2012; Frank, Weiss 2007.

6 For further details see Spillius (2007, 2009); Weiss (2014).

7 About the evolution of the concept in Klein’s unpublished notes see Spillius (2012).