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Melanie Klein's developmental concepts, like those of Freud and Abraham, are based on the phenomena of abnormal mental states. Her first observations were drawn from therapeutic work with disturbed children. In early papers Klein (1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930) gives accounts of how toy figures were used in play and how the children related to her. The cruel manner in which the children dramatized relationships with parents, siblings and the self led Klein (1932) to postulate that an internalized, punishing representation of the parents had established itself in these children as early as the second year of life. The children's fear of being attacked pointed to the operation of projective mechanisms. The cruel internalized parental figures were the consequence of prior projections of sadistic wish phantasies.
According to Klein (1932) this superego formation was the result of introjection while object relations were based on projections. The quality of both was determined by sadism, thus leading to a tyrannical superego on the one hand, and terrifying objects on the other. The cruelty of these introjected and projected objects could not be ameliorated by reassurance. The prototypes for the introjections and projections were oral incorporation and anal expulsion (Klein, 1932).
The children's phantasies as expressed in play had an oedipal character (Klein 1932). Little girls demonstrated a wish to rob the pregnant mother of her baby, kill her and take her place with the father. A little boy's attempt to smash toys expressed a wish to destroy the father's penis. Using this method of symbolic interpretation Klein (1932, ) identified a number of anxiety-provoking phantasies—of parental