ABSTRACT
During the early 1940s, in the shadow of and under conditions imposed by, world war, the British Psycho-Analytical Society was conducting an internal war of its own: a protracted series of fierce and often bitter debates over the validity and growing influence of Melanie Klein’s contributions. 1 The so-called ‘Controversial Discussions’ saw Klein’s followers (and, towards the end of the Discussions, Klein herself) robustly defend the continuity and coherence of her contributions with Freudian metapsychology against the vehement criticism of her Viennese, Hungarian and some English colleagues in the Society.
