Donald Meltzer

Life and Work

Donald Meltzer (1922-2004) was an American-born psychoanalyst whose father’s family had emigrated to New York from Lithuania. [1] He studied medicine at Yale and practised in St Louis as a psychiatrist, before coming to England in 1954 to have analysis with Melanie Klein. He joined the Kleinian group, became a teaching analyst of the British Society and (with the help of Hanna Segal) took on British citizenship. In the early 1980’s disagreements about the mode of training, which he said had become too authoritarian, led him to withdraw from the Society. Meltzer worked with both adults and children – the latter, supervised initially by Esther Bick. Bick’s mode of observational training, based on mother and child interaction, remained a lasting influence. Other significant personal influences were Roger Money-Kyrle and Wilfred Bion; and the Kleinian aesthete Adrian Stokes. Stokes formed the ‘Imago Group’ for discussing applied psychoanalysis, whose members included among others Richard Wollheim, Wilfred Bion, Roger Money-Kyrle, Marion Milner and Ernst Gombrich.[ http://www.psa-atelier.org/index.php?ul=77bff786a3c5ed504f5ddf57e5577b15]

Meltzer is known as a leading figure in the ‘post-Kleinian’ movement and a major interpreter of the work of Wilfred Bion, another analysand of Melanie Klein who was likewise a controversial figure in his lifetime. [2] A significant body of Meltzer’s writings are concerned with the clinical application of Bion’s theories. Meltzer was himself an innovative theorist but his theories, which (after Money-Kyrle) he called ‘models of the mind’, derived from his clinical work with children as well as with adults. In the 1970's and 80's, together with his third wife Martha Harris, head of the Child Psychotherapy training course at the Tavistock Clinic, he developed groups of atelier-style supervisees in many countries throughout Europe and Scandinavia and in South America, and his teaching expanded also to the USA. Meltzer and Harris also established the Roland Harris Educational Trust which published psychoanalytic research under the imprint of the Clunie Press. [3]

Although he taught for many years at the Tavistock, and practised privately in Oxford until his death, Meltzer’s work was in later years better known abroad than in the UK. Since his death however his reputation has increasingly regained ground in his adoptive country as an innovative and original thinker as well as practitioner. Five international congresses have focussed on his work. [4]

Ideas

Meltzer was the originator of many influential concepts, founded on clinical discoveries, philosophical and aesthetic interests, and on the implications of Klein’s clinical work not only of her stated theories. [5] These include:

• the aesthetic conflict - the foundation for normal development , formulated in Meltzer and Harris Williams (1988) The Apprehension of Beauty;
• intrusive-projective identification and life in the Claustrum (narcissistic pathology), first formulated in early seminal papers “The relation of anal masturbation to projective identification” and “The delusion of clarity of insight”, and expanded in The Claustrum (1992);
• adhesive identification and dismantling in two-dimensional autistic states, formulated in a work documenting the experience of 5 colleagues treating autistic children, Explorations in Autism (1975);
• the preformed transference, first described in The Psychoanalytical Process (1967);
• a reappraisal of Melanie Klein’s discovery of the combined internal object, which stresses its beneficial nature as a basis for mental development, in Richard Week-by-Week, Part II of The Kleinian Development (1978).

Meltzer also emphasized the aesthetic qualities of the psychoanalytic process itself, as did Bion in his later years, directing a philosophical spotlight on the emotional nuances of the transference-countertransference transactions within the analytic consulting room.

Donald Meltzer was a prolific writer and his books and many papers are translated into French, Italian, Spanish, German and some into Portuguese and Japanese.

Main publications by Meltzer

• The Psychoanalytical Process(1967), reprinted Perthshire: Clunie Press, 1970
• Sexual States of Mind(1973) Perthshire: Clunie Press
• Explorations in Autism: a psychoanalytic study (1975) Perthshire: Clunie Press
• with Martha Harris: A psychoanalytic model of the child-in-the-family-in-the-community (a study commissioned by the United Nations, published in French in 1976 and first published in English in Sincerity: Collected Papers of Donald Meltzer (1994).
• The Kleinian Development: Book I (Freud), Book II (Klein), Book III (Bion). Single-volume edition Perthshire: Clunie Press, 1978
• Dream Life: a re-examination of the psycho-analytical theory and technique (1983) Perthshire: Clunie Press
• Studies in Extended Metapsychology: clinical applications of Bion’s ideas (1986) Perthshire: Clunie Press
• with Meg Harris Williams: The Apprehension of Beauty: the role of aesthetic conflict in development, art and violence (1988) Perthshire: Clunie Press
• The Claustrum: an investigation of claustrophobic phenomena (1992) Perthshire: Clunie Press

See also

• For a fuller list of Meltzer’s works see Donald Meltzer - Books and Papers
• Many of Meltzer’s papers may be found in Sincerity and Other Works: Collected Papers (1994) ed. A. Hahn. London: Karnac

Meltzer as a Teacher

Meltzer was wellknown internationally as a teacher and supervisor. He favoured an atelier-style system for the teaching and selection of candidates for psychoanalytical training, adumbrated in his paper “Towards an atelier system”. His method was to ask supervisees to present sessions of unedited clinical material, rather than finished papers.[6] Several of his groups and individual supervisees have documented their experiences. See the following:

• Castella, R., Farre, L., Tabbia, C. (2003) Supervisions with Donald Meltzer. London: Karnac.
• Emanuel, R. (2004) “A personal tribute to Donald Meltzer”, Bulletin of the Association of Child Psychotherapists 149, 11-14
• Fisher, J. (2000) “Reading Donald Meltzer: identification and intercourse as modes of reading and relating”, Exploring the Work of Donald Meltzer ed. Cohen and Hahn. London: Karnac, 188-202
• Hoxter, S. (2000) “Experiences of learning with Donald Meltzer”, Exploring the Work of Donald Meltzered. Cohen and Hahn. London: Karnac,12-26
• Psychoanalytic Group of Barcelona (2000), “A Learning Experience”, Exploring the Work of Donald Meltzer ed. Cohen and Hahn. London: Karnac, 203-14
• Psychoanalytic Group of Barcelona (2002) Psychoanalytic Work with Children and Adults. London: Karnac
• Psychoanalytic Group of Barcelona (2007) De un Teller psicoanalitico, a partir de Donald Meltzer. Barcelona: Grafein (in Spanish)
• Oelsner, M. and Oelsner, R. (2005) “About supervision: an interview with Donald Meltzer”, British Journal of Psychotherapy, 21 (3).
• Racker Group of Venice (2004) Transfert, Adolescenza, Disturbi del Pensiero. Armando (in Italian)

Further Reading

• Begoin, J. (2000) “Love and destructiveness: from the aesthetic conflict to a revision of the concept of destructiveness in the psyche”, Exploring the Work of Donald Meltzer, ed. Cohen and Hahn, 119-35. London: Karnac
• Campart, M. (1996) “Matching modes of teaching with modes of learning: a review of Donald Meltzer’s ideas”, in M. Campart and R. Berg, (eds.) Methods of Art as Paths to Knowledge. Malmo: Lund University.
• Cassese, S. F. (2002) Introduction to the Work of Donald Meltzer. London: Karnac
• Cohen, M. and Hahn, A. (eds.) (2000) Exploring the work of Donald Meltzer: a festschrift. London: Karnac
• Fisher, J. (2002) “A father’s abdication: Lear’s retreat from aesthetic conflict”, International Journal of Psycho-analysis Vol. 81(5) 963-82
• Freeden, I. (2005) “Obituary of Donald Meltzer”, Journal of the British Association of Psychotherapists Vol. 43 (19) 88-92
• Gosso, S. (2004)Psychoanalysis and Art. London: Karnac
• Hahn, A. (2005) “Obituary of Donald Meltzer”, International Journal of Psycho-analysis Vol. 86 (1) 175-178
• Harris, M. (1969) Your Teenager, reprinted 2007. Karnac and the Harris Meltzer Trust
• Harris, M. (1975) Thinking about Infants and Young Children. Perthshire: Clunie Press
• Harris, M. and Bick, E. (1987) Collected Papers of Martha Harris and Esther Bick. Perthshire: Clunie Press
• Harris, M. and Negri, R. (2007) The Story of Infant Development. Karnac and the Harris Meltzer Trust
• Hindle, D. (2000) “L’enfant et les sortileges revisited in the light of Meltzer’s contribution to psychoanalytic thinking”, International Journal of Psycho-analysis Vol. 81, 1185
• Li Causi, R. and Waddell, M. (2005) “An appreciation of the work of Donald Meltzer”, Journal of Child Psychotherapy Vol. 31 (1) 3-5
• Money-Kyrle, R. (1976) “Review of Explorations in Autism”, International Journal of Psycho-analysis Vol. 57
• Nemas, C. et al, (2005) “Remembering Donald Meltzer”, British Journal of Psychotherapy, 21(3)
• Vladescu F.V. (ed) (1998) Papers in Honor of Donald Meltzer. New York: esf
• Williams, M. Harris (1998) “The aesthetic perspective in the work of Donald Meltzer”, Journal of Melanie Klein and Object Relations Vol. 16 (2)
• Williams, M. Harris (2005a) “The three vertices: science, art and religion” British Journal of Psychotherapy Vol. 21(3), 429-41
• Williams, M. Harris (2005b)The Vale of Soulmaking: the postKleinian model of the mind. London: Karnac

External links

• The Harris Meltzer Trust
• The Meltzer Online Atelier
• Psychoanalytic Group of Barcelona
• Racker Group of Venice
• Meltzerian Studies in Argentina
• Portraits of the British Psychoanalysts
• Emotional containment and family dynamics
• Psychoanalytic aesthetics: the British school
• Adrian Stokes website
• Forces of Nature
• Donald Meltzer and the aesthetic conflict
• Benign and virulent projective identification
• Autistic defences
• Psychoanalytic technique with children

See also

• Object relations theory
• Projective identification
• Depressive position
• Dream interpretation
• Wilfred Bion
• Melanie Klein
• Sigmund Freud
• Tavistock Institute

Categories: Category:Psychoanalysis | Category:Psychoanalysts | Category:Psychotherapy | Category:Psychoanalytic theory