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London Kleinians in Los Angeles: Laying the Foundations of Object Relations Theory and Practice

Editor : Jennifer Langham

Reviews and Endorsements

This unusual and impressive book explores the impact of psychoanalysis when translated from its establishment in Vienna by Freud, to its development in Berlin and London by Klein, and then to its translation to the unfamiliar culture of Los Angeles. It contains the lectures given by eminent London Kleinians such as Segal, Rosenfeld, Meltzer, and Bion and their reception by their American audiences. Following these lectures, the attractions of California led to the emigration of Wilfred Bion and Albert Mason and to the establishment of an analytic society inspired by their work. Readers of London Kleinians in Los Angeles will have many hours of pleasure as they trace the fate of old concepts in a new milieu; they will be able to judge from both volumes how successful this transplantation was.
John Steiner, training analyst, British Psychoanalytical Society

Whilst Melanie Klein’s work suffered strong criticism in the UK, her ideas fled abroad in a diaspora to various other cultures. This book is a fascinating collection of papers and psychoanalytic history in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s. There are previously unpublished papers by Hanna Segal, Herbert Rosenfeld, Wilfred Bion (two papers), Donald Meltzer; and three papers by local psychoanalysts – Arthur Malin and James Grotstein, James Gooch, and Albert Mason. These last were founders of the Psychoanalytic Center of California, an idea instigated by Mason who had trained with Kleinians in London. Not only is all this original material fascinating but it is also a significant contribution to the Kleinian group at an important period in its London history as well.
R. D. Hinshelwood, Professor Emeritus, University of Essex, UK

These fine volumes bring Hanna Segal, Herbert Rosenfeld, Donald Meltzer, Wilfred Bion, and Albert Mason very much to life, as well as many of the Californian contributors on whom they had such a powerful impact. Jennifer Langham has edited and brought these papers together in a very thoughtful way, giving us insight into the birth and development of British object relations training in America.
Irma Brenman Pick, author, Authenticity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter