The Psychoanalytic Theories of Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott and Their Interaction in the British Society of Psychoanalysis*

The title originally suggested for this paper was “Working with Klein and Winnicott in the British Society of Psycho-Analysis.” That immediately seemed to me far too presumptuous. They were high-ups and, anyway, had their own colleagues and supporters, especially Klein, whom I met only twice outside the seminar in which she taught us for about a month. I was actually on the Publications Committee for three years in the 1960s. It met monthly and was chaired for a time by Winnicott, but that was a business affair and for a time very frustrating. Winnicott's ideas had no scope there. But I did meet him once privately, as I will tell you later.

So, while I intend to present here my reminiscences of Klein and Winnicott, I should first like to indicate what can be read in books on Klein and Winnicott. In the Modern Masters series (from Fontana Paperbacks) there is an excellent short account of Winnicott by Adam Phillips (1988) and, of course, Phyllis Grosskurth's (1986) biography of Klein is already a classic. Grosskurth does present the context of the Society in which Klein and Winnicott performed — there was an element of performance about each of them — and in which they presented their ideas and had them discussed. But, in a biography, Grosskurth has to highlight Klein and her relationships. To attend regularly while they were alive, as I did between 1952 and 1970, at first for training and throughout for meetings, meant contact