Jan Abram and R. D. Hinshelwood, “The Clinical Paradigms of Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott: Comparisons and Dialogues” (Routledge, 2018)

Can one integrate Klein and Winnicott? Or does one have to choose between them when practicing psychoanalysis? These are questions for Abram and Hinshelwood in this podcast interview of two scholars known for their reference books on Klein and Winnicott. Bob Hinshelwood is the author of The Dictionary of Kleinian Thought and Jan Abram is the author of The Language of Winnicott.

Most psychodynamic clinicians practicing today are heavily influenced by Object Relations theory, but many of them do not distinguish between the various kinds of OR theories. This book will give them an excellent opportunity to learn about the fundamental differences between the “object” of the Kleinian infant and the “object” of the Winnicottian one. Since we (therapists) become that object in the transference, Klein and Winnicott give us different paradigms to understand who we might be to our patients in their transference experience.

The Clinical Paradigms of Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott: Comparisons and Dialogues (Routledge, 2018) is relatively short, with concise introductory articles and authentic back-and-forth dialogues between the authors as they clarify their respective paradigms. These dialogues, spiced at times with impatience and frustration, are nevertheless cordial and lucid presentations of the basic ideas and concepts of Klein and Winnicott, with the differences and similarities clearly called forth.

Philip Lance, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with a private practice in Los Angeles. He is candidate at The Psychoanalytic Center of California. He can be reached at PhilipJLance@gmail.com.

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