The Klein-winnicot Dialectic Transformative New Metapsychology and Interactive Clinical Theory

The book begins with the integration of Kleinian and Winnicottian theory from their contrasting, but also complementary, dialectical perspectives with some studies of Melanie Klein’s psychobiography. In doing so, the book has particularly drawn on the biographical research of Phyllis Grosskurth, who published a major biography of Melanie Klein in 1988, quite a time after the briefer biography of Hanna Segal. The other side of the Klein-Winnicott dialectic has been addressed by drawing on two biographies of D. W. Winnicott, with some minor references to the short biography of Brett Khar and more vivid and detailed references to the extremely comprehensive study of F. Robert Rodman (2004). The latter part of the volume provides clinical illustrations of the integration of Kleinian and Winnicottian theories.

This book’s theory and clinical illustrations serve to demonstrate how Melanie Klein’s theories and D. W. Winnicott’s theories work together. This volume of study shows that Klein’s theories of mourning interact with Winnicott’s theories on object survival; potential and transitional space; the true self; and developmental vs. narcissistic mirroring. This is exemplified in clinical cases, as well as in psychobiographical cases of women writers.