Paris-London-Buenos Aires

the adventures of Kleinian psychoanalysis between Europe and South America

Alejandro Dagfal

pp. 179-198

in: Joy Damousi, Mariano Ben Plotkin (eds), The transnational unconscious, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009

Abstract

Melanie Klein (1882–1960) was the first analyst who managed to construct an original system of thought, contesting many Freudian principles, without being forced to leave the psychoanalytic movement. This chapter deals with the strange ways in which her theories were easily transmitted from London to Buenos Aires, in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, whereas she had to wait until 1959 for her first book to be translated into French. Nevertheless, before this date, a curious trilateral circulation of Kleinian ideas — from London to Paris via Buenos Aires — had already been possible, thanks to the action of certain analysts, like Enrique Pichon Rivière, Angel Garma and Willy Baranger. They were European immigrants installed in South America, who succeeded to build unexpected bridges between the Old and the New Worlds. In this process, as we shall see, the role played by their wives — who became analysts as well — was also very significant.

Cited authors

Freud Sigmund

Klein Melanie