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The interest in the life and work of Melanie Klein is growing throughout the psychoanalytic world. Her contributions, long appreciated in Great Britain and in South America, are now being studied and related to ongoing infant research as well as to clinical situations which previously were theoretically conceptualized from different points of view. It is only natural that following the history and development of psychoanalytic thought and newer theoretical explanations, the application to non-clinical studies and areas of scholarship now comes in for greater emphasis. This volume, under review, is one such study. In addition, biographical studies, theoretical and clinical discussions, and very exciting commentaries by contemporaneous colleagues and students of Melanie Klein are advancing our understanding of her insights in many spheres.
Part of our interest in the work of Melanie Klein relates to her development and its relationship to British psychoanalysis. Her personal life and her relationships to Jones, Abraham, Sigmund and Anna Freud, and to many other psychoanalytic 'giants' further puts her struggles and triumphs in contexts that bear on many facets of psychoanalysis. Her pioneering work in child psychoanalysis and her stimulating capacity to interest and involve students and colleagues who did not even know her personally attests to her charismatic power. Her impact on other outstanding psychoanalytic theoreticians and clinicians further confirms the stimulating effects of her ideas, her writings, and her clinical work.
C. Fred Alford is Professor in the Department of Government and Politics of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. His previous book, entitled Narcissism: Socrates, the Frankfurt School, and Psychoanalytic Theory, dealt with 'Post-Freudian (not Freudian) theories of narcissism [which] allow the demonstration of a connection between the Platonic concept of eros and the co