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It takes a great deal of courage to break the barriers of official science and introduce new ideas concerning human nature. Freud did it, and some of his disciples continue the anti-traditional tradition and develop new and unorthodox concepts.
Melanie Klein was one of those brilliant and intellectually independent psychoanalysts. Working with small children, she could not possibly apply the master technique without introducing substantial modifications. Some analysts see in her work a departure from Freud's principles. Melanie Klein herself believed her ideas to represent not a deviation from but an evolution of Freud's work.
One can hardly see anything wrong either way. Freud's system must not become a Bible, and the works of his followers need not resemble talmudic commentaries. Freud was an iconoclast, and his spirit is best perpetuated not by following in his footsteps but by starting where he stopped, by disagreeing with him whenever new evidence challenges his data, and by forming new theories that offer a better interpretation of the available clinical material.
What then, is Melanie Klein's contribution? I must admit that I was profoundly impressed by Hanna Segal's essay written for the collective volume, Psychoanalytic Techniques: A Handbook for the Practicing Psychoanalyst, which I edited. Hanna Segal's exposition is lucid, well organized, systematic, explaining Melanie Klein's work in a concise yet precise manner.
Hanna Segal's clarity of presentation makes it easy to state one's evaluation of Melanie Klein's contribution. The main contribution obviously does not belong to the area of technique; as Hanna Segal pointed out, the Kleinian technique is “strictly based on Freudian psychoanalytic concepts.” The chief modifications are, undoubtedly, modifications of Freud's concepts.
Concepts are neither facts nor methods. Facts are either true or false; methods are either fruitful or futile. Concepts are neither of these.
Compulsions, bedwetting, nausea, headache, a