Melanie Klein: Her Work in Context

by Meira Likierman

Melanie Klein remains one of the most important and influential figures in psychoanalysis. Klein pioneered the analysis of children and applied her insights on the infantile origins of unconscious drives to adult analysis.Meira Likierman's study is the best available introduction to Melanie Klein's thought and work.

Genres: Psychology, Psychoanalysis

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the theoretical text Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick prescribed for the course she taught on Proust, and also one of the two books whose “persuasive paraphrase” of Klein’s work she credits with having “dramatically punctuat[ed]” her enduring attraction to it (the other being R.D. Hinselwood’s A Dictionary of Kleinian Thought). While I can see its curricular value, its ability to vividly animate Kleinian objects relations is totally lost on me. Sentence by sentence this is not a challenging read and you can easily speed through it. But it’s as dry as sawdust—so much so that, somewhat paradoxically, even as the pages fly by it can still feel like a total slog, which has undoubtedly inhibited my level of retention too. Though clearly intimate with Klein’s writings and influences, Likierman is not in the least rhetorically gifted. Not a terrible primer, all told, but an unlively one, to be sure (which, I suppose as far as primers go, is hardly a unique offence).

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tough read in terms of keeping focused, and only now is it getting to the theories that I am interested in.

I find it particularly trying - and often amusing - getting through the Oedipal jargon.

Bring on the Depressive position!

***

I have rated it 5 stars for comprehensiveness, but it certainly isn't what one would consider a "great read", purely based on the material.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely masterful overview of Klein's intellectual development and a trenchant critique of the distortions of her thought that many post-Kleinians share and trumpet as the truth of Klein