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Melanie Klein explored the fantasy life of children in exciting fashion. However, in reporting what she found, she introduced a number of vigorous, sometimes unlikely,
ideas that made what she said provocative and lead on the one hand to uncritical acceptance, on the other to violent objections, or total rejection. Now that the noise of the resulting battle has somewhat, though not entirely, abated, it is interesting to see where those who are following up her investigations stand. Meltzer is one of them: he succeeds in preserving what is essential in her work, without engaging in some of her extravagances, and develops it in suggestive ways.
Sexual states of mind is divided into three parts. The first is a clear and altogether admirable account of how Freud's discoveries and metapsychology developed and how they were elaborated by Abraham, who opened the way for Melanie Klein to add her own perspective. A prominent feature of part two is the differentiation of adult from infantile and adolescent sexuality and a clear line of demarcation is also arrived at between normal and pathological forms of each. This is helpful and Meltzer has much to say that is original. Part three applies his thesis to such features of society as tyranny, pornography, abortion, education, etc.
Yet Sexual states of mind is not easy to read and presupposes a good grasp not only of Klein's work but also that of Segal, Bion, and Rosenfeld. In addition, it does not give much indication as to when Meltzer is introducing an opinion, discovery or theory of his own, while his illustrative clinical material is often insufficiently explicit: it requires several readings and some imaginative inference before sense can be made of it. Additional difficulties are that some references are not included in the bibliography, and there is no index for those that like to use one for cross reference purposes. Finally, though the wide range of its appeal provides part of its stimulus, it also makes for difficult