Melanie Klein: From Theory to Reality by Otto Weininger. Published by  Karnac Books, London, 1992;  210 pages; £16.95.

After a panoramic foreward by James Grotstein on the history, development, migration and receptivity of Kleinian ideas, followed by a brief biography of Klein by the author, we learn in the introduction the aims of the book. They are two: one, to outline the basic aspects of Melanie Klein's theories and the other, to suggest, in the words of the author, their range of application by drawing upon his vast experience as child psychotherapist and psychologist. The book is written for students or practitioners in child psychology. It has five chapters, the first on the schizo-paranoid position, the second on the depressive position, the third on the Oedipal phase, the fourth is on a Kleinian approach to elective mutism in children, and the fifth is a schematic resumé of Kleinian theories of infant psychic development.

Otto Weininger's endeavour to metabolise Klein's ideas, making them accessible and suggest their range of applications, all in 200 pages, in itself deserves recognition. With the first three chapters the reader is given the most exhaustive and comprehensible account of the vicissitudes of unconscious phantasy. The ubiquitousness of its operation is shown by numerous vignettes and observations of children and parents which make very interesting and alive reading. However anyone not already familiar with psychoanalytic theory and practice will not have much of an idea of where it all came from and how Klein came to develop her ideas in the way she did. More reference to Klein's ‘practice’ would have relieved the author of the burden of having to ‘prove’ the theory, a burden which is often evident when, to make a theoretical point, he makes people ‘talk’ Kleinan jargon. This form of exposition, used for educational purposes, can suggest to the reader a sense of knowledge of the internal world gained not through psycho-analytic experience, but through possession of the