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L' école de Melanie Klein by G. Bléandounu is a book which we very much appreciated for the complete and honest way in which it faces a very arduous task: defining the key points of Kleinian theory and finding links and transitional phases in the development of the theory by followers.
The book is articulated in such a way that the specification of Klein's model as it appears in various periods is followed by the study of the contributions of later Authors: from those who contributed to the development of Kleinian theory itself (i.e. co-authors of the collected works of 1952 and 1955: P. Heimann, M. Milner, E. Rodrigué, H. Rosenfeld, A. Thorner, J. Rivière, Elliot Jacques, H. Segal, R.E. Money-Kyrle, etc.) to those who have followed new lines of research. Among these Bléandounu describes both Authors (Bion and Meltzer) who have determined also a “break” with respect to the Kleinian system, rightly considering their conceptualization to be no longer compatible with a linear development, and those which have moved away and followed other directions (such as e.g. Milner, Winnicott and Tustin). Full attention is also given to Authors who have contributed “original” ideas, even if their development is coherent with the ideas of M. Klein (Bick).
Immediately, after reading the book, we made a comparison with the interesting article by Bott Spillius, “Some Developments from the Work of Melanie Klein”, which appeared in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1983. This paper on one hand helps one to understand developments in Kleinian theory and their birth from the ideas by M. Klein regarding both theory, clinical issues and technique (also demonstrating the current trends of the Kleinian model with particular reference to the very interesting works by B. Joseph), on the other hand it seems to play down the importance of some very significant developments such as those by Bick and Meltzer. As far as Bion is concerned, the Author seems to favour what in his thought der