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(Accepted for publication 23 May 2016)
It is interesting to read this historical material both from the perspective of the broad evolution of psychoanalytic ideas in Britain and with respect to the psychoanalytic understanding of homosexuality. Meltzer's paper and Mason's case material together provide a remarkably clear example of a fertile period in the development of aspects of the Kleinian tradition, and in particular of clinical techique. In his very close reading of the dream material Meltzer spells out the implications of his emphasis on analysing unconscious phantasy as it appears in the evolution of the transference relationship to the analyst. His book The Psycho-analytical Process published at the time of the present short paper gives an account of his overall approach to psychoanalysis and the later Sexual States of Mind , as Bronstein describes, explores more fully his views on a psychoanalytic understanding of sexuality and sexual relationships. Perhaps it is also worth noting that in 1998 (Cohen and Hahn) he said that he had over time become less interested in matters of sexuality in consequence of the impact of Bion's understanding of mental function. However, during the late sixties, which was after all the decade of the sexual revolution in the western world, his work struck a chord in an evident desire to reassess the attitude of psychoanalysis to sexual matters.
It may be worth noting something about the context of the British Psychoanalytic Society during those years. The decades of the 1950s and 1960s were a time of intense development of the Kleinian paradigm. Rosenfeld, Segal, Money-Kyrle and Bion were all publishing important work, and others influenced by, but separate from the Klein group, including Winnicott and Bowlby, were similarly making substantial contributions. It was indeed a very creative time in the British Society. While later on Meltzer withdrew from membership, after some years of strained relationships, there had been a signf