Top 11 Quotes & Sayings by Melanie Klein

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Austrian psychologist Melanie Klein.

Last updated on December 22, 2024.

Melanie Klein was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis. She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Klein suggested that pre-verbal existential anxiety in infancy catalyzed the formation of the unconscious, resulting in the unconscious splitting of the world into good and bad idealizations. In her theory, how the child resolves that split depends on the constitution of the child and the character of nurturing the child experiences; the quality of resolution can inform the presence, absence, and/or type of distresses a person experiences later in life.

Austrian - Psychologist | March 30, 1882 - September 22, 1960

Source: Wikipedia

My psycho-analytic work has convinced me that when in the baby's mind the conflicts between love and hate arise, and the fears of losing the loved one become active, a very important step is made in development.

Melanie Klein

One of the many interesting and surprising experiences of the beginner in child analysis is to find in even very young children a capacity for insight which is often far greater than that of adults.

Melanie Klein

God has put something noble and good into every heart his hand has created. So while living on earth we must always remember to learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow because time will only show what has mattered throughout our journey.

Melanie Klein

The highly ambitious person, in spite of all his successes, always remains dissatisfied, in the same way as a greedy baby is never satisfied.

Melanie Klein

Feminism freed my mind. Yoga freed my body. It's one thing to intellectualize self-love and another to embody it.

Melanie Klein

It is an essential part of the interpretive work that it should keep in step with fluctuations between love and hatred, between happiness and satisfaction on the one hand and persecutory anxiety and depression on the other.

Melanie Klein

the anxiety arising from the perpetual activity of the death instinct, though never eliminated, is counteracted and kept at bay by the power of the life instinct.

Melanie Klein

It is characteristic of the emotions of the very young infant that they are of an extreme and powerful nature.

Melanie Klein

Although psychology and pedagogy have always maintained the belief that a child is a happy being without any conflicts, and have assumed that the sufferings of adults are the results of the burdens and hardships of reality, it must be asserted that just the opposite is true. What we learn about the child and the adult through psychoanalysis shows that all the sufferings of later life are for the most part repetitions of these earlier ones, and that every child in the first years of life goes through and immeasurable degree of suffering.

Melanie Klein

The root of creativity is found in the need to repair the good object destroyed during the depressive phase.

Melanie Klein

Feelings of love and gratitude arise directly and spontaneously in the baby in response to the love and care of his mother.

Melanie Klein