Melanie Klein

Melanie Klein
Melanie Klein in 1952
Born	(1882-03-30)30 March 1882 Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died	22 September 1960(1960-09-22) (aged 78) London, England
Fields	Psychoanalysis
Known for	Devising therapeutic techniques for children Coining the term 'reparation' Klein's theory splitting Projective identification
Influences	Sigmund Freud Karl Abraham
Influenced	Herbert Rosenfeld Otto F. Kernberg Jacques Lacan Cornelius Castoriadis Donald Meltzer Wilfred Bion

Melanie Reizes Klein (30 March 1882 – 22 September 1960) was an Austrian-British psychoanalyst who devised novel therapeutic techniques for children that influenced child psychology and contemporary psychoanalysis. She was a leading innovator in object relations theory.

Born in Vienna of Jewish heritage, Klein first sought psychoanalysis for herself from Sándor Ferenczi when she was living in Budapest during World War I. There she became a psychoanalyst and began analysing children in 1919. Allegedly two of the first children she analysed were her son and daughter. In 1921 she moved to Berlin, where she studied with and was analysed by Karl Abraham. Although Abraham supported her pioneering work with children, neither Klein nor her ideas received much support in Berlin. However, impressed by her innovative work, British psychoanalyst Ernest Jones invited Klein to come to London in 1926, where she worked until her death in 1960.

Klein had a major influence on the theory and technique of psychoanalysis, particularly in Great Britain. As a divorced woman whose academic qualifications did not even include a bachelor's degree, Klein was a visible iconoclast within a profession dominated by male physicians.

After the arrival of Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalyst daughter, Anna Freud, in London in 1938, Klein’s ideas came into conflict with those of Continental analysts who were migrating to Britain. Following protracted debates between the followers of Klein and the followers of Anna Freud during the 1940s (the so-called 'controversial discussions'), the British Psychoanalytical Society split into three separate training divisions: (1) Kleinian, (2) Anna Freudian, and (3) independent. This division remains to the current time.