Instinct, Phantasy, and Psychological Deep Structure

Introduction ALTHOUGH A SIGNIFICANT PROPORTION OF the world's analysts are Kleinian analysts, a serious consideration of the work of Melanie Klein has not been a major part of the dialogue that constitutes American psychoanalytic thinking. Too often, when Klein's theory is considered, it is scrutinized only long enough to be dismissed on the basis of one "untenable" idea or another, such as Klein's conception of the death instinct, her developmental timetable, her theory of technique, and so on. My intention is not to proselytize, for I am not a Kleinian and have profound disagreements with many aspects of her work; rather my aim is to present Klein's thinking in a light that might account for the important influence her ideas have had on the development of psychoanalytic thought outside of the United States. In particular, Klein has had a powerful influence on the development of British object relations theory; although this as