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This issue is about Kleinian psychoanalysis as it is practiced and taught in the British Psycho-Analytical Society today. Six of the contributors are members of the British Society: Spillius, Britton, Sodré, Roth, Steiner, and Feldman. Two, Cycon and myself, are members of the German Psychoanalytic Association and were trained in Germany in “traditional Freudian” analysis and later sought supervision for many years from members of the British Society in order to integrate Kleinian ideas into our work.
Melanie Klein was herself a Freudian; nevertheless, as Spillius points out in the introductory article of this issue, she was also an innovator. Spillius reviews the evolution of ideas in Klein's own work as well as their continued development in the theory and practice of those who followed her. This is a helpful summary not only for the reader who has little or no knowledge about Kleinian ideas, but also for those familiar with them. As an additional aid to readers, I offer here a brief explanation of the current concepts common to the contributors to this issue.
Basic to contemporary Kleinian thinking concerning human experience is the idea contained in the following diagram formulated by Wilfred Bion:
“PS” stands for the paranoid-schizoid position and “D” for the depressive position. The paranoid-schizoid position is a primitive,