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‘Words and magic were in the beginning one and the same thing, and even today words retain much of their magical power’ (Freud 1924, p. 21). Freud's saying is pertinent to this book which originated in meetings from the mid-90s set up to explore similarities and differences between the Kleinian and Lacanian traditions. Their founders diverged from Freud whilst sharing his conviction in the radical nature of the unconscious that finds its expression in language.
Melanie Klein was born in Vienna in 1882 to a doctor father and a much younger mother. The family moved to Hungary where Klein was analysed by Sandor Ferenzci and, later in Berlin, by Karl Abraham. Both analysts fostered her interest in the analysis of children, which impressed Ernest Jones, who invited Klein to settle in Britain in 1925. Jacques Lacan was born in 1901 in Paris where he trained as a psychiatrist and then as an IPA psychoanalyst. He moved in artistic and intellectual circles that included Picasso, Dali and Breton, as well as philosophers, historians and anthropologists. Lacan's well-known ‘return to Freud’ was opposed to the development of ego-psychology in the United States.
The last two chapters, by the sociologist, Michael Rustin, and the historian, Elisabeth Roudinesco, address the socio-cultural and historical background to the flourishing of the Kleinian approach in Britain and the Lacanian in France. Both traditions have spread globally since their origins in those countries though ‘Lacan's work is very poorly known in the Anglo-Saxon world, even though he had been largely responsible for introducing the work of Klein and Winnicott to France’ (p. 19).
The editors' extensive Introduction is followed by chapters by the Kleinian, Catalina Bronstein, and the Lacanian, Bernard Burgoyne, where the former's emphasis is on clinical work and the latter's on language and the intellect. Chapters that focus on major themes exemplifying Kleinian and Lacanian approaches are written by eminent practition