#klein archive

11th April 2018

Some exciting news: as a result of a collaborative effort by the Melanie Klein Trust and the Wellcome Library, the entire Melanie Klein archive has now been digitised and is available to study online. This new digital collection contains over 350 items (files and folders) and over 30,000 images.

You can access it via the Wellcome Library’s website: https://wellcomelibrary.org/. In the ‘Search the Library Catalogues’ bar on the homepage, simply search for ‘Melanie Klein’ and then filter by ‘Online’. Alternatively, you can search for ‘digklein’ on the homepage.

Some items in the archive, for example child clinical material concerning a patient who could still be identifiable, have been digitised but kept in restricted form until a specified future date. All other material, however, is freely available, and it is no longer necessary to join the Wellcome Library to study it.

There are clearly huge advantages to being able to access the archive online. Valuable yet fragile material has now been preserved for future scholars. Previously, the only means of consulting the material, via microfiche in the Wellcome library reading room, was laborious and inconvenient, not least for the great number of Klein scholars outside London. What is more, we now also have the wonderfully useful advantage of being able to enlarge images at a click, and so to examine texts and images more closely.

Already I have been able to decipher sections of Klein’s handwritten materials that were previously tantalisingly illegible on photocopies and microfiche. This has been immensely helpful in my work. Indeed, I have for some time been putting together a collection of Klein’s unpublished work and papers based on the archive, which task has suddenly become considerably easier. (The book’s working title is, Essential New Readings from the Melanie Klein Archives, to be published by Routledge, probably in 2019).

February 21st 2017

This year has already seen an important publication from the archives: Lectures on Technique by Melanie Klein, edited with a critical introduction by John Steiner. These are six lectures first given in 1936 by Klein to analytic candidates, plus two seminars transcribed from a tape recording made in 1958, of Klein answering questions from a group of young analysts of the British Psychoanalytical Society. It is very exciting that this substantial new work of Klein’s has now been published. There is a lot of evidence that Klein intended to publish a book on technique – sadly she had far too many projects and ambitions for one lifetime. However, she almost certainly planned to edit these very lectures as part of that book, so it is wonderful that John Steiner has completed the task that she could not.

The 1936 lectures are often startling in their freshness and relevance to discussions of technique today. They are to be found in the archive files C52 and C53. The seminars are fascinating in that we can hear Klein talking freely to her colleagues without any prepared script. The original transcript of the seminars can be found in file C72. In Lectures on Technique, John Steiner has both provided excellent editing of the lectures and seminars, and written a fascinating review and discussion of their content.

A steady stream is now accumulating of publications based on the Klein archive, and there is scope for many more. It seems a good time to provide readers with a list of what has already been published. There are almost certainly other publications that I have not encountered, so this list is not exhaustive. I would be very pleased to hear from readers about anything not mentioned here.

I would also be very interested to hear from anyone who has studied the archive and intends to publish material, not least to try to avoid duplicating one another’s work. It should also be noted by researchers working in the Klein archive, that the Melanie Klein Trust has copyright over all material and must be informed so as to give permission for any publications. The Trust is currently supporting several pieces of work on the archive, including the translation into English of a number of German language papers by Claudia Frank (listed below).

In chronological order, here is a list of articles and books I have encountered, which have used archival material. Where it has been easy to indicate the part of the archive used, I have done so.

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Grosskurth, P. (1986) Melanie Klein: Her World and Her Work. London: Knopf. King, P. and Steiner, R. (Ed.s, 1992) The Freud-Klein Controversies 1941-45. London: Routledge. {Uses extensive material from Box E of the archive}   

Frank, C.,and Weiß, H. (1996) ‘The origins of disquieting discoveries by Melanie Klein: The possible significance of the case of ‘Erna’’. International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 77, 1101-1126.

Hinshelwood, R. (1997) ‘The elusive concept of ‘Internal Objects’ (1934-1943) Its role in the formation of The Klein Group’. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 78:877-897. {Uses material from C68, C92 and D16}

Mason, A (1998) ‘Melanie Klein’s notes on Citizen Kane with commentary’. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 18:147-153. {Uses material from C89}

Frank, C. (1999) ‘The discovery of the child as an object sui generis of cure and research by Melanie Klein as reflected in the notes of her first child analyses in Berlin 1921-1926’. Psychoanalysis and History, 2:155-174.

Frank, C. (1999) Melanie Kleins erste Kinderanalysen: Die Entdekung des Kindes als Objekt sui generis von Heilen und Forschen. Stuttgart Bad Cannstatt: Fromann-Holzboog.

Frank, C. (2009). Melanie Klein in Berlin: Her First Psychoanalyses of Children, ed. E. Spillius. London: Routledge. Trans. Sophie Leighton. {This book, published in German and then English, uses archival material on the treatment of four small children, Grete, Rita, Inge and Erna}

Likierman, M. (2001) Melanie Klein: Her Work in Context. London: Continuum.

Frank, C. (2002) ‘„Versuch einer Analyse: Frau Klein“. Anmerkungen zu einem Ambulanzblatt der Berliner Psychoanalytischen Poliklinik von 1921.’ In G. Bien, E. Holzboog, T. Koch (Hg.): Wissenschaftsgeschichte zum Anfassen von Frommann bis Holzboog. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt (Frommann-Holzboog), 317-325. [“Attempt of an analysis: Mrs Klein. Notes on a policlinic paper from the Berlin Policlinic in 1921].

Frank, C. (2003) ‘Zu Melanie Kleins zeitgenössischer Bezugnahme auf Hitler und den Zweiten Weltkrieg in ihren Behandlungen.’ Psyche-Z Psychoanal 57, 708-728. [On Melanie Klein’s contemporary references to Hitler and the Second World War in her treatment]. {Uses B84, B85 and C96}

Frank, C. (2004) ‘„[…] the so-called analytic attitude“. Zu unpublizierten Ausführungen Melanie Kleins über die Grundhaltung bei Erwachsenenanalysen.’ In Zeitschrift für psychoanalytische Theorie und Praxis, 19, 289-308. {Uses C52 and C53}

Frank, C. (2005) ‘„Angstberuhigung“ – Zu Melanie Kleins unveröffentlichtem Beitrag „On Reassurance“.’ In Luzifer-Amor. Zeitschrift zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse, 36, 23-41. [On Reassurance – on an unpublished contribution of Melanie Klein] {Uses C67}

Hinshelwood, R. (2006) ‘Melanie Klein and Repression: An examination of some unpublished notes of 1934’. Psychoanalysis and History 8:5-42. {Uses B89}

Spillius, E. (2007) Encounters with Melanie Klein, Selected Papers of Elizabeth Spillius. London: Routledge. {Uses B98, B99, C47, C48-52, C53, C54, C59, C67, C72, C76, and D3-17}

Hinshelwood, R. (2008) ‘Melanie and Klein and countertransference: A note on some archival material’. Psychoanalysis and History 10:95-113. {Based on material from C72 and D29 (the latter incorrectly cited in the paper as D31)}

Frank, C. (2008) ‘„Ist es ein Tier im Inneren?“ Melanie Kleins unpubliziertes „Don Juan Paper“ (1939)’. In: Luzifer-Amor 41, 120-140.  [“Is it an animal inside me?“ On Melanie Klein’s unpublished Don Juan paper from 1939] {Uses C91}

Frank,c.(2009): Das „Melanie-Klein-Problem“.  Zur Publikationsgeschichte der Psychoanalyse des Kindes. In: Luzifer-Amor 44, 99-139. [The Melanie Klein Problem: On the history of the publication of The Psychoanalysis of Children]

Frank, C. (2011): »… feeling very strongly that what Ferenczi would not do might be done«. Überlegungen zu Melanie Kleins Suche nach einem ihr förderlichen psychoanalytischen Arbeitsumfeld. In A. Berger, F. Henningsen, L. Hermanns, J. Togay (Hg.): Der psychoanalytische Aufbruch Budapest–Berlin 1918 –1920“. Frankfurt: Brandes und Apsel, 129-155. [“… feeling very strongly that what Ferenczi would not do might be done”. Thoughts on Melanie Klein’s search for a helpful psychoanalytic working environment]

Spillius, E., Milton, J., Garvey, P., Couve, C. and Steiner, D. (2011) The New Dictionary of Kleinian Thought. London: Routledge.

Frank, C. (2012) „Wiedergutmachung – zur Entstehung eines neuen Konzepts aus Melanie Kleins ersten Kinderanalysen“. In Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse. 65, 81-106. [Reparation – on the development of a new concept out of Melanie Klein’s first child analyses]

Frank, C. (2013) „Drei statt zwei Prinzipien psychischen Geschehens? Überlegungen zu Freuds einschlägiger Arbeit (1911b) und Melanie Kleins Entdeckung eines bösen Prinzips“. In L. Hermanns/A. Hirschmüller (Hg.): Vom Sammeln, Bedenken und Deuten in Geschichte, Kunst und Psychoanalyse. Gerhard Fichtner zu Ehren. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: frommann-holzboog, 223-247. [Three instead of two principles of psychic functioning? On Freud’s ideas in 1911 and Melanie Klein’s discovery of an evil principle]

Quinodoz, J-M. (2014) Melanie Klein and Marcelle Spira: Their Correspondence in Context. London: Routledge. {NB: this correspondence is recently discovered and does not yet appear in the Wellcome catalogue}

Steiner, J. (Ed., 2017) Lectures on Technique by Melanie Klein. London: Routledge. {Uses C52, C53 and C72}