Klein, Melanie (1882-1960), was an Austrian-born psychoanalyst who pioneered in the psychoanalysis of children. She made an important contribution to the understanding of psychological development during the first two years of life. Klein extended the work of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and developed a method for analyzing children based on the observation of their play. She maintained that the way children play with toys reveals their inner fantasies and anxieties. Klein’s new methods led to disagreements with other followers of Freud, most notably with his daughter, Anna Freud. Klein later extended her work to adults. She theorized that inner conflicts that occur early in a child’s life may result in more serious mental illness in later years.
Melanie Reizes was born on March 30, 1882, in Vienna, Austria. She trained as a nursery-school teacher. She went to Budapest, Hungary, where she studied the work of Freud and wrote her first paper on child analysis in 1919. From 1921 to 1926, she was a member of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute in Germany. In 1926, she moved to England. She settled in London, where she carried out most of her work. She died on Sept. 22, 1960.
Klein was a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and the International Psychoanalytical Association. The Melanie Klein Trust was founded in 1955 to fund training in psychoanalysis and the publication of Klein’s work. Her books include The Psychoanalysis of Children (1932) and Envy and Gratitude (1957). Her Narrative of a Child Analysis was published in 1961, after her death.
