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This lengthy (about 1,000 pages) compilation of meeting minutes, correspondence, and other memoranda documents the power struggle euphemistically referred to as the controversial meetings and discussions, which ensued within the British Psycho-Analytical Society during the Second World War, immediately following the death of Freud. The rival powers consisted of the followers of émigré analysts Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, the latter representing direct patrilineal and ideational descent from the founder. Paradoxically, one of the most outspoken members of the Freud camp was Klein's own daughter, Melitta Schmideberg. The discussions began over the governance of the society, whose constitution at the time permitted political and ideational power to be concentrated in the same hands for long periods of time, and encompassed such critical issues as freedom of expression and control of student training, or as it may appear to readers of this remarkable document, ideological indoctrination. From political issues the debates turned to whether Klein's ideas could be construed as psychoanalytic. Discussion centered on three papers: Susan Issac's well-known paper on phantasy, Paula Heimann's paper on introjection and projection, and Klein's own articulation of the depressive position.
It is evident that the Freud camp was heavily invested in propagating the patriarchal authority as though it were a faith, a set of ideas that were deemed not only necessary but sufficient for psychoanalysis, and a political structure that would ensure their unopposed continuity. The acrimonious personalization of the debates was in large part due to the inability of the parties to distinguish the science of psychoanalysis from the patriarchal authority of its founder, to differentiate person from idea. Thus, ideas acceptable to the prevailing power group are referred to as “Freudian psychoanalysis,” as though the two are indistinguishable, and unacceptable ideas are labeled by the name of their