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As a result of the Anschluss, Freud was forced to leave Vienna in 1938 and re-settle in London, where he died a year later leaving his daughter, Anna, to continue his work. This led to a fierce power struggle between her and another, earlier immigrant from Vienna, Melanie Klein.
The British Psycho-Analytic Society (the Society) had been founded in 1919 by British analysts headed by Freud's biographer, Ernest Jones. Their early struggle was to gain acceptance by the establishment, especially the British Medical Association. Melanie Klein joined them in 1926 and by the 1930s the Society's new ideas were beginning to come into conflict with those of the pioneers in Vienna.
Two analysts, the archivist, Pearl King, from the Society's Middle Group and the Kleinian, Riccardo Steiner, have assembled, in The Freud-Klein Controversies 1941-45, previously unavailable material from the archives which documents the fierce debate that took place in the Society between the different factions during the period 1941-45, set against the background of world conflagration and of bombs dropping on London. The result is a long chronological account of the controversies, with a brief history of the main characters at the beginning and including excellent introductory essays and comments-throughout by the editors.
A series of Extraordinary Business Meetings and Scientific Discussions was held by the Society to debate the controversies. At that time, the distribution and tenure of offices of power in the Society resided for too long in too few hands and part of the debates entailed detailed discussions on how to run things along more democratic lines. A change of rules was urgently needed but complicated by the fact of many absentee members due to the War.
In addition, London was increasingly distancing itself from the orthodox Viennese, reflecting Ernest Jones's wish that London become the centre of psychoanalysis. The controversy between Freud and Jones over female sexuality and Freud's rejec