Melanie Klein, a 20th-century psychological theorist, changed her field with the conception of the mother as the central authority figure in a person's upbringing, New School for Social Research history professor Eli Zaretsky argued yesterday.
Speaking in front of a small gathering of students and scholars, including historians and psychologists, Zaretsky presented a lecture entitled "War, Women and Psychoanalysis: The Case of Melanie Klein."
Klein was born in Vienna and was strongly influenced by Sigmund Freud's close associates. Though Klein and Freud were contemporaries, their ideas on human nature often diverged.
"Klein did not focus on universal moral norms," Zaretsky said, but rather adhered to the view that a person's main task was to build up a network of connections to others.
Freud, meanwhile, believed that the central issue for a person lay in strengthening the ego, which would enable a person to overcome urges and impulses, he said.
"I consider Klein to have made something of an extraordinary intellectual breakthrough," Zaretsky said. "In many ways, she was a pioneer. She was largely responsible for the moment things turned around and the focus turned to the mother-child relationship."
But while they disagreed in some areas, Klein and Freud both believed that humans strive to attain some kind of goodness in life or some level of accomplishment.
A central aspect of Klein's work focused on the role of the mother and the notion of a matriarch. Klein believed that much of family life revolved around the mother, rather than the father.
For Klein, the ability to form relationships with others began with the relationship forged with the mother, for she was viewed as the only comfort an individual was afforded.
Klein argued that the mother should not be overlooked but seen as the secure background to life.
Additionally, Zaretsky said Klein focused on the manner in which the rise of capitalism and the onset of World War I had repercussions in family lives as women assumed wartime roles outside of the household.
As the number of females pursing careers as psychoanalysts greatly increased after the war, Klein became a mother figure for younger analysts.
Ironically, though, she and her daughter would become embroiled in an intense conflict. Klein's daughter would eventually claim that Klein herself failed to understand the true meaning of maternal love, Zaretsky said.
Many of Zaretsky's arguments yesterday were taken from his forthcoming novel, "Secrets of the Soul," set to be released this year.
