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3rd February 1956
Dear Mrs. Riviere:
After Mrs. Klein's paper1 you and she spoke to me and within the framework of friendliness you gave me to understand that both of you are absolutely certain that there is no positive contribution to be made from me to the interesting attempt Melanie is making all the time to state the psychology of the earliest stages. You will agree that you implied that the trouble is that I am unable to recognize that Melanie does say the very things that I am asking her to say. In other words, there is a block in me. This naturally concerns me very deeply and I very much hope you will give me a little bit of your time. I would willingly call on you if you do not feel like writing a letter. Enclosed are the notes from which I chose certain passages when speaking after Melanie's paper.
There is no need for me to try to tell Melanie how to do analysis. If I am any good at analysis myself it is largely due to her work and also to yourself. Also the work Melanie had done recently, drawing our attention to projective identification and now to envy, is undoubtedly valuable, although I would like to say that her contributions in these respects can be overvalued since analysts