1
Background to the Scientific Controversies
RICCARDO STEINER
Introduction
It is not possible nor is it necessary in this introduction to the discussion of scientific controversies for me to give a summary of the scientific disagreements, as they are clearly stated by the participants in the chapters that follow, although I do, of course, discuss them later. The points of view expressed by the participants in these and other discussions reported in this book have not matured in isolation from those of other colleagues, but have evolved out of a network of relationships and shared experiences, supportive or undermining as the case may be.
In order to obtain a deeper understanding of the differences and cross-currents influencing the feelings, fears, assumptions, prejudices, and points of view expressed by the main participants not only during the discussions of scientific differences, but also during the Business and other Meetings that are reported in this book, I have quoted some of the considerable correspondence that exists in various archives. In particular I have selected correspondence between Melanie Klein and her colleagues and the leading members of the British Society, such as Ernest Jones, Sylvia Payne, Barbara Low, Marjorie Brierley, Edward Glover, and Anna Freud. (It is regretted that only limited material from Anna Freudās archives have been available to the editors.)
As a result of this approach it is hoped that I will have been able to communicate the emotional and interpersonal context accompanying these controversies so that the reader will be able to empathize with those taking part in these discussions as human beings, as well as evaluating their own opinion of the correctness or incorrectness of the points of view expressed by the participants.
The threat to Melanie Kleinās work
Dear Dr Jones,
At last I am sitting down to reply to your letter. You need not have feared to touch on my feelings, I am sure you overrate very much their strength in connection with my work and with Psychoanalysis in general if in narrating to me these matters you had to remind yourself of my sense of fair playā¦. What you say about your situation in Vienna, i.e. what you described to me in your letter as the first matter, is very easy for me to understand and sympathize with. At the time I resented Anna settling here with a large and representative part of the Vienna group and thought that you had too little considered the disturbance to our work and also that you confronted us with a fait accompli (this point you have explained). Some of those Viennese who since went to USA (which of course one could not foresee) have very soon volunteered the information to me and others that they had every possibility to go to America and would have done so, had you not invited and encouraged them to come to England. As regards Freud as I said, I can fully understand your attitude and I also am very glad to think that Freud had a happy year in England in spite of the difficulties which Annaās presence gives rise to here.
However as I said before I understand and even at the time in spite of some misgivings understood the difficulty of the choice you had to make and it is not this matter in itself which would have moved me to reproach you for harm done to Psychoanalysisā¦. The harm from this side [Klein means the presence of Anna Freud and the Viennese] is part of the general situation of deterioration which is due to what you describe as the second matter.
Those are the first paragraphs of a draft of a letter written by Melanie Klein to Ernest Jones probably in the late spring of 19411 in response to a letter written to her by E.Jones, on 14 April 19412 where he tried to explain to her the reasons why he had in the end to choose London to rescue Freud and his family, although he was quite aware of the anxieties and problems that this could create for Melanie Klein, for her work, and also for the British Psycho-Analytical Society. In his letter Jones clearly explained to Klein his difficult position and the tragedy of the Viennese caught in a struggle āfor life and death and desperate to leave Vienna by hook and by crookā. He also expressed his satisfaction for having rescued Freud āmy best personal friend as well as a great man to whom we all owe so muchā.
Freud [added Jones], apart from his pain spent one of the happiest years of his life in London with all his family and servants gathered round him, including even brother, nephew and grandchildren, and all his own children except one were there. The Viennese members behaved pretty well on the whole. At present they have nearly all left for America, the Bibrings being the last to go, except for old Dr Steiner who came to England independently of my will and who is now also arranging to leave. There remain in England only the Hoffers, whom I regard as very decent people and Anna Freud.
In order to appease Klein, Jones at one moment stated6 āshe [Anna] is certainly a tough and indigestible morsel. She has probably gone as far in analysis as she can and has no pioneering originality. Much worse than that, however, can be said of a good many of our members, and she undoubtedly has many valuable qualities.ā
At this point in his letter Jones mentioned what he called āthe second matterā, to which Klein refers in her letter too. Jones tried to explain to Melanie his views and his version of the problems which had arisen in the British Psycho-Analytical Society owing to the odd changes in Gloverās behaviour āin connection with the change in Melittaā (Kleinās daughter, who at that time was in analysis with Glover). See Grosskurth (1986), King (1983), and Segal (1979).
Jones went on, saying that Glover could have been āthe only available successor to myself as President of the Society. Even today he is the only male medical analyst who can appear before a non-analytical audience without arousing sharp criticism or even ridiculeā¦. It is the general opinion that [Melittaās] influence was the more powerful of the two.ā Concerning Gloverās offices as Director of the Clinic and Chairman of the Training Committee when Jones had resigned and semi-retired to the country, he felt that on the whole those decisions were not really wrong. It was natural that Glover had to succeed him at the Clinic; if the Training Committee had appointed him as its Chairman, āIt would have been quixotically futile for meā, continued Jones, āto attempt to displace him unaided.ā There was not a suitable alternative, because Jones, disagreeing with Klein, did not think that Rickman was such an alternative: āwith all his admirable and attractive qualities he has always had grave failings of a particular kind that make him an impossible administrator or a man of affairsā¦ā āTo put the whole matterā, concluded Jones, āthere are many things I should arrange otherwise were I God, but I do not happen to be. When the last war broke out Freud wrote to me that he refused to take on his shoulders the foolishness of the world and I think this was a wise remark.ā Jones knew that Klein would disagree with what he said, because she was, if not at war, certainly more pars in causa than him in what he called the second matter. One has only to try to follow what she says to become aware of the intensity of her feelings, which seem to express themselves also through all the erasures she made and the fact that she re-wrote part of the draft several times, slightly changing her statements every time. However, it is quite clear that she felt that the problems created by Glover and her daughter Melitta were quite devastating for her work for the British Psycho-Analytical Society and for psychoanalysis in general. She writes:
I appreciate some of the points you mention about the background regarding Glover and the whole situation. Whether or not Melittaās influence over him was the more powerful of the two, undoubtedly it is he who is the much more dangerous of the two because owing to his skill, better tactics and various other circumstances he is successful in his consistent endeavours not only to harm the new work in which I have a share but to bring about a regression in Psychoanalysis which goes far beyond the time when this work started.
Klein acknowledged that Jones had been put in a difficult position. Yet at this point she openly stated:
But I hold that if from May 1935 onwards when this campaign openly started and the work at the meetings began to deteriorate had you consistently and wholeheartedly discouraged and checked these personal attacks and regressive tendencies (thinly veiled by scientific verbiage) you would have had the majority of the members on your side and the whole situation would have developed differently. It is true the Society is weak and without initiative and many individual members seem to lack more than average in discrimination and strength of characterāall the more they would have needed a strong lead from you. I have in former years seen the same Society flourish and develop under your leadership and more than anywhere else the torch was carried among us.
But there were even more general and serious difficulties which, according to Klein, could have been overcome had Jones adopted another policy:
Had you introduced or at least been willing to support a policy that offices should change hands from time to time, many members would have been only too pleased to support this (or to suggest this) at a General Meeting. The reason recently you gave me against such a policy did not convince me for it would have been much more important since you clearly recognized the harmful influence of Glover, to prevent him from fortifying himself in offices and from getting still others which he more and more turned into key positions, using them for furthering his purposes to the detriment of the work and for discrediting Psychoanalysis in the public eye. In your view Glover was your only available successor and this made things more difficult.
āWouldnāt it at least have been better to hint at Payne as a possible President?ā Klein added. The following paragraphs of Kleinās letter are a full and, at times, moving defence of Rickman and his qualities which she had learned to know since he had gone into analysis with her. Then the letter suddenly becomes even more emotional and personal. And in spite of the difficulties of following Kleinās thoughts, due to the fragmented way in which her thoughts have been preserved, it is worthwhile quoting a few other paragraphs because they allow us to catch the human, creative side of her personality facing those difficult moments, which expresses itself with great vividness and sincerity.
Speaking of my part in this struggle there is something with which I feel much concerned. I should have produced much more since 1935 when I published my first paper referring to my work on depression. I need not tell you that the attacks particularly directed on this part of my work (whereby people for various reasons arbitrarily choose to make a division between these findings and the one which preceded them) did not in any way diminish my conviction about its truth and value, but they increased my difficulty in presenting it.
Klein goes back more than once to her difficulties, yet, at one moment, she also mentions the great creative experience which led to those new discoveries whose acceptance was so difficult:
My greatest experience in this was Beyond the Pleasure Principle and the Ego and the Id and what an experience it was. In a smaller way I saw in my own work repeatedly a new light appear and things altered by it. Particularly was this so when I began to understand it in connection with aggression, reparation and the part it plays in the structure of personality and in human life. From there heads a straight road to the insight into depression which so much occupied my mind ever sinceā¦. I began to understand the origins and contents of depression and of the immense range of human feelings, of the strength of love and hate, sorrow and hope and with it the realization of a very rich inner worldā¦. But it is an overwhelmingly difficult task to describe this knowledge to others who cannot see it. I think these findings could not have been unworthy to have been made even by Freud and he would have had the greatness, the strength, the powers to present them to the world. I donāt want you to misunderstand me. I am not afraid of fighting against anybody, but I really donāt like fighting. What I wish to do is to let quietly others participate in something I know to be true, important, and helpful, to let them share in it and to teach them if they are willing to learn. I have actually much changed in this respect. I am not any more keen to convince others and to debate. The loss of my son, the grief about my daughter have much contributed to this changeā¦. The fact that my daughter is one of my main opponents has a bearing on this wish not to fightā¦. That the former friendly and inspiring co-operation of this group as a whole has changed into the contrary is not only disconcerting, it has taught me much about the difficulties of conveying this work to others so that they may hold on and use it.
Yet in praising Jones for having defended her work in standing up against Freud in 1927 and on other occasions Kleinās views about the future of psychoanalysis in Britain were quite gloomy unless some radical change were to take place:
The fact that I have observed here is that people have actually in recent years given up much of my former work, including of course other peopleās work, even their own, but donāt seem to recognize that they regressed. How often did you point out that analysts are like fishes and there is a strong tendency to get away from the depths. In my own observations this tendency was a very frequent one among analysts on the Continent after Freud had introduced the Superego. It was too much for most of them to assimilate and develop itā¦. And I think many of them did not even do so. My work on depression also proves too much even for some of those who accepted my work about internal objects and even about persecutory fears. The situation of disruption which arose in our Society of course favours regression in the work proper but I feel sure that my concept of depression is for many people too painful and too difficult to accept and has therefore the effect of making them regress to former and safer āpositionsā.
Nevertheless she did not despair:
I often thought about the prophetic words you uttered when in spring 1927 you showed me a letter of Freud, a reply to your asking him about his objections to my conception of the Superego. You told me then it would take me a long time, 15 years, until I would have brought this home to analysts in general. (It is interesting, by the way, that when I quoted your words to Glover some years later, when the concept of the internal objects had further developed, he said with sincere conviction, āYou will never be able to do so; it goes too much to rootsā.) I am still far, as we know, from having achieved this aimā¦in a sense further away than I was years ago and with new and perhaps still greater difficulties ahead of me. Mind you I am not despairing and if I have 15 or twenty more years left to live and to work I should be able to accomplish my task. But I realize how difficult it is and what powers of presentation I would need to give evidence for the truth and importance of these findingsā¦.
Kleinās draft of her letter and Jonesās statements contained in his own letter to Klein quoted above are a very important and interesting starting-point for those wanting to understand the complexity and the intricacy of the documents which are presented in this section of the book, and which refer to the ten Scientific Meetings and Discussions held by the British Psycho-Analytical Society in 1943ā4. Following a similar title given to them by Glover in 1944,3 nearly twenty years after the meetings, in 1967 J.Sandler collected the papers concerning eight of those ten Scientific Meetings4 and circulated them privately in two special numbers of the Scientific Bulletin of the British Psycho- Analytical Society. They were called āControversial Discussionsā, and under this title they gradually became known to the community of British psychoanalysts.
The correspondence between Klein and Jones is nevertheless not the only reference point. Those who try to apply to psychoanalysis and to all its historical vi...
