History: Melanie Klein at Work - The Case of Mr. B

Mr B was in his late twenties when he began analysis in 1934. His treatment lasted for many years, coming to an end possibly as late as 1949.1 He was seen five, and occasionally six, times weekly, on the couch. Although the analysis was interrupted a number of times during the war due to Mrs Klein’s moves out of London and Mr B’s being called up for war service, the treatment largely continued throughout that period.

Mr B was, by the time he started analysis, married with three children. He was the owner of a large estate that incorporated a farm, outside of London, and he sat on the board of a company with offices overseas as well as in London. He was “a difficult patient to manage”, in Klein’s words. He was often silent, was frequently late, and was typically hostile, full of complaints and grievances.

Klein writes of Mr B that,

His upbringing was that of a child of typically Victorian parents in wealthy surroundings in which everything that was best was provided for the children. There was a nurse and nursery maid, and relatively little contact with the parents up to the time they went to school.

Mr B reports that he was fed by his mother during his first month of life and he believed this had been a harrowing experience. He thought he had been extremely frustrated at the breast; that there had neither been enough milk nor enough time with his mother. He also felt he had been very poorly held, literally, by his mother, and he attributed his own physical awkwardness and ungainly way of holding himself to this.

When a nanny arrived at the end of Mr B’s first month, she reportedly “found that he had been starved” and “gave him the bottle”. Mr B was to share the nursery with this nanny, who became overall a good figure in his life, until his fifth year. At this time, Mr B’s sister was born and his nanny became her nursemaid.

The birth of his sister when he was five years old was, in Mr B’s words, “a shattering experience”. He tells Klein he had no idea another baby was c