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[[Born ]] in [[Vienna]], she built on the [[work ]] of [[Sigmund Freud]], particularly in the area of [[child psychology]]. Klein is one of the cofounders of [[object relations theory]].

Invited by Ernest [[Jones]], Melanie Klein came to [[London ]] in 1926, where she worked until her [[death ]] in 1960.

Apart from her successful introduction of triumphant [[psychoanalytic ]] [[concepts]], Melanie Klein’s [[life ]] was [[full ]] of [[tragic ]] events. She was the product of an unwanted [[birth]]. Both her [[parents ]] showed little affection to her. Her much loved elder sister died when she was four. Melanie was made to feel [[responsible ]] for her brother’s death. Her academic studies were interrupted by [[marriage ]] and [[children]]. Her marriage failed. Her son died. Her daughter, well-known [[psychoanalyst ]] Melitta Schmideberg, fought her openly and histrionically in the British [[Psycho]]-[[analytic ]] [[Society ]] and [[left ]] to America. She neither reconciled with her [[mother ]] nor attended her funeral. Melanie Klein was also clinically depressed.

Klein's [[theoretical ]] work gradually centered on a highly speculative hypothesis propounded by [[Freud]], which stated that life may be an anomaly, that it is drawn toward an inorganic [[state]], and therefore, in an unspecified [[sense]], contains an [[instinct ]] to die. In [[psychological ]] [[terms ]] [[Eros]], the sustaining and uniting [[principle ]] of life, is thereby postulated to have a companion force, [[Thanatos]], which seeks to terminate and disintegrate life.

Examining ultra-[[aggressive ]] [[fantasies ]] of [[hate]], [[envy]], and greed in very young, very ill children, Melanie Klein put forth the [[interpretation ]] that the [[human ]] [[psyche ]] is in a constant oscillation depending on whether Eros or Thanatos is in the fore. She calls the state of the psyche, when the sustaining principle of life is in domination, the depressive [[position]]. The psychological state corresponding to the disintegrating tendency of life she gives the [[name ]] the [[paranoid]]-schizoid position.

Melanie Klein's [[insistence ]] on regarding [[aggression ]] as an important force in its own [[right ]] when analyzing children brought her into [[conflict ]] with [[Anna Freud]], the [[other ]] major [[child ]] psychotherapist [[working ]] in England at the [[time]]. Many controversies arose from this conflict.

Klein, Melanie 15, 20, 197, 251, 272, 284 [[Ecrits ]]