Discussion: Melanie Klein at Work: The Case of Mr B

The general impression of this analyst at work is of a confident experienced clinician with a patient who is deeply involved in his sessions where he is often in a desperate state, weeping and angrily expressing criticisms directed against Klein and her work. He attacks her in many of the sessions, for example accusing her of doing him harm, of failing to understand his love of music and his suffering as a child, and indeed seeing her as responsible for his mental suffering in general. This does not stop him from listening to her and he sometimes admits she is right in what she says. The setting seems to be safe enough for him to express his anger freely and Klein clearly listens to his complaints and takes them seriously. It may be that he held such a strong expectation that the analysis would relieve his suffering that he was disappointed and angry when it offered understanding rather than direct relief.

The material begins with three consecutive sessions from June 1936 which are near the start of the analysis and take place just days after the death of his mother.

We are told that in the previous session the patient had accused Klein of doing him every kind of harm and had to be reminded that his mother had just died and that some of his feelings must relate to her. That evening he seemed to agree with her when he wrote admitting he could not really maintain that analysis was the cause of his despair.

For most of the session Mr B is in great distress, overwhelmed with feeling, weeping and asking Klein how it can help him to know that he feels this way about his mother.

Klein attempts to answer this question by telling him,

That it all refers not only to the real mother, but to the dangers to the internalized mother and his peace of mind about her (English 1922, 25).

Mr B goes on to express “desperate distress” about his wife, and more distress about a business transaction where he feels he had been unable to do anything against the chairman.

Kle