Donald Meltzer

Donald Meltzer (1922–2004) was a Kleinian psychoanalyst whose teaching made him influential in many countries. He became known for making clinical headway with difficult childhood conditions such as autism, and also for his theoretical innovations and developments. His focus on the role of emotionality and aesthetics in promoting mental health has led to his being considered a key figure in the "post-Kleinian" movement associated with the psychoanalytic theory of thinking created by Wilfred Bion.

Meltzer was born in New York City and studied medicine at Yale University. He practised in St. Louis as a psychiatrist, before moving to England in 1954 to have analysis with Melanie Klein. He joined the Kleinian group, became a teaching analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and took on British citizenship. In the early 1980s disagreements about the mode of training led him to withdraw from the Society. Meltzer worked with both adults and children. Initially his work with children was supervised by Esther Bick, who was creating a new and influential mode of psychoanalytical training at the based on mother-child observation and following the theories of Melanie Klein. As a result of the regular travels and teaching of Meltzer and Martha Harris (his third wife), who was head of the Child Psychotherapy Training Course at the Tavistock, this model of psychoanalytic psychotherapy training became established in the principal Italian cities, and in France and Argentina.

Meltzer taught for many years at the Tavistock, and practised privately in Oxford (UK) until his death. Owing to having left the British Society, his ideas were controversial. He supervised psychoanalytically oriented professionals in atelier-style groups throughout Europe, Scandinavia and South America, and his visits also included New York and California. Since his death in 2004 his reputation has increasingly regained ground also in his adoptive country. Several international congresses have focussed on his work: in London (1998), Florence (2000), Buenos Aires (2005), Savona (2005), Barcelona(2005) and Stavanger, Norway (2007).

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