You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
These two volumes present Jean-Michel Petot's comprehensive and exhaustive inquiry into the origin, formation, and evolution of Melanie Klein's views on psychoanalytic theory and technique. This is an important task considering the complexity, ambiguity, and many inconsistencies in Melanie Klein's work. As Petot emphasizes throughout, Klein's theory is hardly a closed system. Klein's important theoretical constructs have gone through many revisions, but have not been always re-integrated into the general body of her theoretical system. As such the meaning of so many of her concepts such as introjection, internal object, imago, splitting, paranoid and depressive positions, etc., depends very much on the specific historical phase of the development of her ideas. It would be indeed difficult for the students of psychoanalysis to understand Klein's theory by reading a few of her isolated papers, particularly those of the early years. For those interested in understanding Melanie Klein's work, Petot provides an excellent theoretical base.
Petot's ability to bring clarity to some of the most esoteric thinking in psychoanalysis is most impressive. His work is certainly in the best tradition of French scholarship. There is no linguistic obfuscation and intellecutal mystification of simple ideas. Actually, Petot tries to demystify much of the esoteric, and at times confusing, language of the Kleinian theoretical writings. He also tries to maintain a relatively objective analytic stance for the evaluation of the scientific value of Melanie Klein's work. Here he is not always successful. In short, Petot has produced some very good work. Much credit should be due to Christine Trollope for an excellent translation of the language of such a complex and difficult area of inquiry.
The first volume is a historical and theoretical survey of Klein's