Melanie Klein. Her world and her work.

Umschlag berieben, sonst gutes Exemplar. - Melanie Klein was a leading figure in psychoanalytic circles from the 1920s until her death in 1960. Now, drawing on a wealth of hitherto unexplored documents as well as extensive interviews with people who knew and worked with her, Phyllis Grosskurth has written a superb account of this fascinating, complicated woman and her theories- theories that are still growing in influence both here and abroad. Brought up in turn-of-the-century Vienna, Melanie Klein had a troubled childhood with a domineering mother, ineffectual father and beloved, but wastrel brother. A joyless marriage led to depression, but under analysis with Ferenczi and Abraham, her life began to change. She started her professional career in Berlin, but an invitation from Ernest Jones brought her to London, where she made her home. But as Phyllis Grosskurth makes clear, this courageous, forceful woman was to encounter (even encourage) opposition. For the rest of her days she was embroiled in heated conflicts over the nature of her work and in struggles for control of the professional organisation to which she belonged - not least with Sigmund Freud and his acolyte daughter Anna. There were disputes, too, with British analysts and, most tragically, with her own daughter Melitta, whom she had introduced to the psychoanalytic world when still a young girl in Budapest. ISBN 9780340257517