This volume introduces the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein to the general field of education and
traces her theories of mental life as an emotional situation through to problems of self other
relations in our own time. The case is made for Klein's relevance and the difficulties her
theories pose to the activities of learning and pedagogical relation. Klein's vocabulary-the
paranoid schizoid and depressive positions phantasy object relations projective
identification anxiety envy and the urge for reparation and gratitude- are discussed in
terms of their evolution and the designs of her main questions all stemming from the problem
of inhibition. Her contribution to an understanding of symbolization and the shift from
concrete thinking to greater freedom of mind is analyzed. The essay develops the following
questions: why is learning an emotional situation? How did Klein's life and larger history
influence her views? What are her central theories of mental life? Why did Klein focus on
anxiety and phantasies as making up the life of the mind? What is object relations theory? And
what does Klein's model of the self proffer to contemporary education in schools and in
universities?
