MELANIE KLEIN (1882-1960)

Melanie Klein is a Viennese psychoanalyst who graduated from high school and analyzed her son. Raised by his parents as an “unwanted child”, he started observing his son from the age of 3 and brought a different dimension to child psychoanalysis with free-play observations. Klein is an English psychoanalyst who was born in Vienna in 1882. His mother Libussa is 24 years younger than his father. His father is a surgeon. Klein is the youngest child of an Orthodox Jewish family. Klein's birth was not planned and he was born as an “unwanted child”. He is the only child in his family whose mother does not breastfeed. Klein had a healthy bond with his older sister in his family, but he lost her when he was 4 years old. Later, Klein, who had lost his older brother and was in great mourning over his older brother's death, married his older brother's close friend when he was 21 and had 3 children from this marriage. Due to his wife's travels and long distance, their marriage deteriorated and the couple divorced in 1923. On September 22, 1960, Melanie Klein died in London.

Klein settled in Budapest after her marriage. This city became the turning point of his life because it was here that he met Ferenczi, who was one of Freud's close circle. Ferenczi, known as the father of psychoanalysis, initially met with Klein for therapeutic purposes, and then allowed Klein to move his interest in psychology beyond a hobby. Ferenczi suggested that Klein analyze his own children, Klein definitely made an introduction to psychoanalysis with this suggestion. Later, he had the opportunity to listen to Freud in Budapest and wrote his first article on child case analysis. Melanie Klein was accepted as a member of the Psychoanalysis Association. He presented his own son Erich's analysis under a different name. He attracted the attention of Ernest Jones with his congresses and activities and moved to London with his invitation.

Klein is referred to as the founder of the theory of object relations. In Klein's theory, there is an association from the moment the child is born, and the importance of the object is in question. What Klein based on was the relationship between the mother's breast and the child. According to Klein, the baby creates its own reality at first. He cannot perceive reality as adults perceive it, and his first reality is completely imaginary. This imaginary object is the mother's breast. The first internal object with which the baby is associated establishes its relationship with the mother's breast. The ego exists from the moment the child is born and is subjected to development. Klein emphasizes the importance of the first 4-6 months after childbirth. Due to the inability of the child to express his own associations, the free play technique is used. He leaves the game to the child and the child chooses the toy. He plays effectively with the child, but the child also positions himself.

The Concept of Good Breast- Bad Breast
According to Klein, the first object that the baby associates with is the mother's breast. This first relationship determines how their future relationship will be shaped. Junky breasts are experienced by the baby as an object that does not give pleasure, distracts from pleasure. Junky breasts are experienced by the baby as an object that does not give pleasure. The baby feels anger towards this object that does not provide him with satisfaction. A good breast, on the other hand, is experienced as an object that feeds the baby and meets its needs. The baby sees a good breast as a protector and wants to protect it himself. A bad breast, on the other hand, raises the issues of abandonment of the baby, being left alone. The baby feels the desire to destroy, destroy the bad breast. The baby, who experiences the breast as such a rich, nutritious, perceives it as a powerful object. And the bad breast thinks that he is saving the milk for himself. The baby feels “envy” towards the bad breast and wants to be destructive towards the breast. Because according to the baby, the bad breast object keeps its satiety to itself and leaves the baby hungry. Babies feel dependent on their mother to meet their needs. She also meets her security needs through her mother. Over time, the baby realizes that mom is an object that communicates with dad, other siblings, the environment, and that she is not the only person he is interested in. The division of interests and resources reveals a feeling of “jealousy” in the baby.

The concept of "location"
Klein says that according to the object relations theory, infancy was spent in paranoid schizoid and depressive positions. These locations have their own characteristics, defense mechanisms and internal object relationships. The position gained does not stay forever, returns can be experienced.

Paranoid-Schizoid Position: As soon as the baby is born, he experiences himself with evil and destructive objects. This is not a tolerable situation. It is more tolerable to have these evil objects outside than to have evil objects inside oneself, and therefore, in order to get rid of baby anxiety, it tries to remove the aggression and bad sides of itself that it does not want inside itself by projecting them onto the breast.

Depressed Position: In this position, the baby now begins to distinguish what is his own dream, what is reality, and to see the mother as a whole. The paranoid-schizoid position decreases. He experiences the mother as an object who both loves and deprives himself of the breast. The baby begins to feel guilty in a depressed position because of the damage he has caused to the good breast. Because this object that he damaged is now both a good and an evil object.