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Over the course of our psychoanalytic history, starting with the Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, psychoanalysts have attempted to describe the clinical process through descriptions of clinical psychoanalyses. Whether through vignettes or detailed clinical material, this is the evidence we have used to describe and understand what occurs in the consulting room. The Analyst At Work section has put detailed clinical material at the centre of this exploration, and in this unique edition of the AAW, it is Melanie Klein’s clinical work that is under consideration.
In 2003, Christine English published Melanie Klein’s Narrative of an Adult Analysis (2023), which contains Klein’s detailed notes of her analysis of Mr B. This is one of the very few examples of an extensive record of clinical work covering the course of an entire analysis. Mr B’s treatment spans a crucial period during which Klein is developing her theories of the mind and technique of working as a psychoanalyst (Steiner 2017).1
Klein’s notes at times take the form of unfiltered process notes, and at others read like retrospective reflections on what was happening in a given session. As such, it is sometimes hard to know whether the interpretations Klein records were actually delivered to Mr B, or were formulated as she wrote up a given session, or were highly condensed summaries of her understanding of the material. Regardless, the Adult Narrative is an extraordinary window into Klein’s mind and consulting room. I proposed to Dr English that we could publish a cross section of hours from the book for the AAW section to demonstrate to the Journal’s audience the way Mrs Klein worked. She agreed and together we selected the hours presented here, and have co-edited this section.
Richard Week by Week (1978), a short book by Meltzer, attempted to outline the Kleinian development based on Klein’s short analysis of a child patient, Richard. It drew on limited data, including Klein’s notes, her described interventions,