Donald Meltzer – A Contemporary Introduction

Meg Harris Williams talks with Prof. Aner Govrin and Dr. Sharon Ziv Beyman about her new book

Published in the Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series

* The meeting will be held in English.

In this intelligent and insightful work, Meg Harris Williams presents a clear and readable introduction to the works of the influential British psychoanalyst Donald Meltzer. The book deals with Meltzer's central ideas, including: sexuality, dreams, psychosis, deviance, aesthetics, and his work with both children and adults. Particular emphasis is placed on Meltzer's views on the nature of psychoanalysis itself, as a method of inquiry carried out by collaboration between two people.

Melzer's intuitive understanding of dreams is linked to his vast interest in philosophy and linguistics. The book allows readers to understand Melzer's clinical practice, the seminars he gave, and the training he gave. It also includes a comprehensive review of his work, carefully presented by those who worked with him for many years. Harris Williams makes Melzer's rich and complex theory accessible and provides it with contemporary contexts.

In this conversation, Meg Harris Williams will discuss with Aner Govrin and Sharon Ziv-Beiman her acquaintance with Melzer and other British psychoanalysts, the influence of Freud, Bion, and Klein on Melzer's thought, and central themes in Melzer's writing, such as sexuality and creativity, interpretation, dreams, aesthetic conflict, projective identification, and the delusional system.

Meg Harris Williams is a literary scholar and former Meltzer analyst. She teaches a postgraduate course at Tavistock in London.

She is the author of many books, including:

Dream Sequences in Shakespeare: A Psychoanalytic Perspective , The Aesthetic Development: The Poetic Spirit of Psychoanalysis: Essays on Bion, Meltzer, Keats , The Vale of Soulmaking: The Post-Kleinian Model of the Mind , Aesthetic Conflict and Its Clinical Relevance . She also edited three volumes of Selected Papers of Donald Meltzer: Philosophy and History of Psychoanalysis .

Coupon for purchasing the book at a discount