Melanie Klein’s Narrative of an Adult Analysis offers the first detailed account of Melanie Klein’s work with an adult patient, Mr B, which spanned the years 1934 to 1949.
This volume includes fully edited sessional notes made by Klein about her work with Mr B. Christine English has expertly collated, curated and annotated Klein’s original notes from the Melanie Klein Archive, giving the reader clear insight into this fascinating case for the first time. Throughout, English offers extensive critical commentary, as well as a thorough introduction to the case. She gives the rare opportunity for the reader to be privy to the working practice of one of the most eminent analysts of her time, offering a clear and detailed record of Klein’s interventions and thinking in her work with one patient over a number of years. This unique and vivid record shows Klein’s technical approach in the greatest detail, showing her sensitivity and intuition as a clinician, as well as introducing many of her influential theories.
This book will be essential reading for all psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and other therapists interested in Klein’s work. It will also be of interest to post-graduate clinicians, psychoanalytic theoreticians, academics and researchers concerned with psychoanalytic ideas and the work of Melanie Klein.
1. One who has not been held well 2. My army is ready and I am fully on its side 3. Death had all his life been hanging over him 4. Walking over scorched turf 5. The relief one gets from tears 6. Reproaches, depression, the old picture 7. No longer so much in the depths 8. Conclusion
Biography
Christine English is a child, adolescent and adult psychoanalyst in private practice in South Oxfordshire, UK. She is a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, Archivist of the Melanie Klein Trust, and Honorary Associate Professor of the Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London.
"This is a formidable work on the source of Melanie Klein’s ideas that provides a fascinating picture of Klein as a clinician, and sheds light on many of the deepest questions raised by psychoanalysis. Aptly entitled Narrative of an Adult Analysis, this book may come to rival the Narrative of a Child Analysis as a means of understanding Klein’s work. Christine English has admirably brought together and commented upon Klein's clinical notes, and the book allows Klein’s ideas to be explored in the details of her sessions, providing direct clinical evidence for her theories."
John Steiner, Training and Supervising Analyst, British Psychoanalytical Society.
"Christine English has produced a book of tremendous interest and major importance. It is also gripping to read. This book is the first and for now the only account of Melanie Klein’s day to day psychoanalytic treatment of an adult patient, and it is enthralling. Working from her access to Klein’s extensive notes in the Melanie Klein Trust archives, the author presents a detailed and expressive account of Klein's highly original way of thinking and analysing. The book will be an important and exciting addition to psychoanalytic studies."
Priscilla Roth, Training and Supervising Analyst, British Psychoanalytical Society.
"With this work, Christine English has taken a hugely important step forward in Klein studies. She has tapped into a very rich seam in the Klein archive, drawing together extensive and detailed sessional notes which illustrate beautifully how Klein thought about and worked with an adult patient, Mr B. This rare and moving account of an adult analysis is a wonderful adult complement to, and will likely become as famous as Klein’s analysis of her child patient, Richard. It deserves to be very widely read indeed."
Jane Milton, Training and Supervising Analyst, British Psychoanalytical Society
