Psychoanalysis 

Two eminent psychoanalysts discuss the instinctual sources of emotion in normal adults. This book is something new in psychoanalytical exposition--both in its subject matter and its form of presentation. It attempts to convey, in everyday language understandable to the layman, some of the unconscious mental processes which underlie the feelings and action of normal, adult men and women. The characteristic feature of human psychology is the intense and continual interplay of the impulses of love on the one hand and hatred and agression on the other. Joan Riviere opens this joint study with an analysis of hate, greed, and aggression, and in the second section Melanie Klein talks about the forces of love, guilt, and reparation. Tracing the impulses in question back to their origins in infancy, the authors point out many features of adult mental life which evidence the persistence of earlier modes of thinking. Then they discuss some of the "infinitely various, subtle and complicated adaptations" by means of which each individual tries, all his life, to keep a balance between the life-brining and the destructive elements of his nature in order to achieve the maximum of security and gratification. Editorial Reviews About the Author Melanie Klein, MA (Santa Monica, CA) is a writer, speaker, and professor of Sociology and Women's Studies. She is the adviser of the Santa Monica College Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and the founder and co-coordinator of WAM! Los Angeles. Klein also founded FeministFatale.com and is a contributor for Proud2Bme, a NEDA project, Adios Barbie, Elephant Journal, Intent.com, MindBodyGreen, and Ms. Magazine's blog. Joan Riviere was born in Brighton, Sussex, in 1883, and was educated firstly in Brighton itself and then at Wycombe Abbey School, a well-known girls' boarding school. Although she received no university education, an event of great significance for her later career occurred in her seventeenth year when she was sent to live with a family in Gotha, Germany, in order to acquire proficiency in the German language. In 1906 she married Evelyn Riviere, a barrister at the Chancery bar and son of the successful Victorian painter, Breton Riviere. By 1915 she had entered into analysis with Ernest Jones, and some years later embarked on her first translations of papers by Freud. When the analysis with Jones proved unsatisfactory she became, for a brief period, Freud's analysand. Freud was quick to discern her potential usefulness to the psychoanalytic cause as a sensitive and creative translator, and in 1922 she was appointed Translation Editor of the 'International Journal of Psycho-Analysis'; a position she occupied until 1937.It is uncertain when Joan Riviere and Melanie Klein first met but, by the time Mrs. Klein settled in London in 1926, she was already established as An early supporter. In later years Riviere emerged as one of the most articulate proponents of Kleinian ideas, working closely with Mrs. Klein during the 1930s and 1940s, and publishing several papers of her own. A certain coolness, however, developed between Klein and Riviere in the 1950s as Riviere-always uneasy in groups- gradually withdrew from the growing circle of students and supporters who surrounded Klein as her influence and authority made themselves felt.Since her death in 1962, Joan Riviere's reputation has rested principally on her early achievement as a translator and on her later role as a persuasive and lucid disseminator of Freudian and Kleinian ideas. The respect gained for her in these quarters has, however, tended to obscure the importance and originality of her own contributions to psychoanalytic literature. It is to be hoped that this volume will go some way to redressing the balance and allow the reader to establish the great value of Joan Riviere's contribution to psychoanalytic theory and practice.