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Guide VIII-149

Kleinian play technique

Melanie Klein1919Berlin
A 30 · L 44 · M 2621 interventions in the Trinity explorer
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[source: …] where a claim comes from[uncertain] not confirmed in a primary source[synthesis] the writer's reconstruction

1. Introduction

Version followed: Melanie Klein's classical play technique as she set it out in The Psycho-Analysis of Children (1932, ch. II "The Technique of Early Analysis", read in a full-text scan; page numbers below refer to that scan) and as shown in Narrative of a Child Analysis (1961), via the Melanie Klein Trust's summaries. The contemporary frame is the UK psychoanalytic child and adolescent psychotherapy training tradition (Tavistock, accredited by the Association of Child Psychotherapists). Klein's 1955 paper "The psycho-analytic play technique: its history and significance" is not drawn on here, so nothing below is attributed to it. [uncertain: chapters IV–V of the 1932 book, on latency and puberty, were not readable]

Kleinian play technique is a psychoanalytic method of treating children. The child's free play with small, simple toys (and drawing, water, cutting and talk) is treated as equivalent to the adult's free associations. The analyst interprets the anxieties and unconscious phantasies that the play represents, including how they show in the relationship with the analyst (the transference), from the very first session. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 40–47; Garibaldi 2021; MKT technique; MKT beginnings] Klein developed it in Berlin from 1919, with early patients such as Rita (aged 3) and Erna (aged 6), and later in London. Her disagreement with Anna Freud, who held that young children do not form a transference and that the analyst should act partly as an educator, shaped the method's identity. [source: MKT beginnings; Edwards 2009]

How change happens (in Klein's account). According to Klein and her school, the child's play stages unconscious phantasies: inner dramas of love, hate, damage and repair involving parental figures and their bodies. Anxiety about these phantasies inhibits play, learning and relationships. Accurate, timely interpretation of the active anxiety brings relief, frees play, and lets the child work the anxiety through. The Klein Trust describes the effect as giving "a feeling of being understood and therefore revives hope". Klein's later concepts (the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, internal objects, reparation, projective identification) are her school's theory of development. They are an interpretive framework, not established fact. [source: MKT technique; Klein 1932 pp. 52, 58–59]

What it is not. It is not non-directive or child-centred play therapy, and not an educational or behavioural method. The analyst deliberately avoids educational influence and reassurance. [source: Klein 1932 p. 36; MKT technique]

Professional frame. In the UK, psychoanalytic work with children in the Kleinian tradition is done by Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists trained on ACP-accredited courses. One example is the Tavistock's four-year, full-time Professional Doctorate (M80). Entry requires a pre-clinical observational course (M7 or equivalent, including about two years of psychoanalytic baby observation and work-discussion seminars) and an NHS training post. Training includes personal analysis (usually four or five times a week), supervised intensive cases (three times weekly), and short- and long-term work with ages 0–25 and with parents and families. ACP registration is needed to work as a child psychotherapist in the NHS, charity and voluntary sectors. [source: Tavistock M80] The Anna Freud Centre/UCL runs another accredited doctoral route, which follows a different (Anna Freudian/contemporary) tradition. [source: search listing only] Child analysis proper is also taught at IPA-affiliated institutes. [uncertain] Whether child psychotherapy is statutorily regulated in a given country was not verified. [uncertain]

The technique's deep and early interpretations of aggressive, sexual and transference material must not be used without this kind of psychoanalytic child training, a personal analysis and ongoing supervision. Other clinicians, such as play therapists, counsellors and adult therapists, can draw on its observational stance but should not present their work as Kleinian child analysis. [synthesis]

2. Framework

Klein did not publish a phased manual. The structure below is assembled from her case accounts and from current UK training practice. [source: Klein 1932; MKT technique; Tavistock M80; phase labels are synthesis]

Phase 0: Referral, parent consultation and consent [synthesis, grounded in Klein 1932 p. 42 n. and Tavistock M80]

  • Goals: take the developmental and family history and the reason for referral from the parents or carers. Learn the child's own words for body parts and bodily functions; Klein collected these from parents. Agree frequency, length, fees, holidays and the plan for parent work. Obtain consent from whoever holds parental responsibility, and the child's assent. Explain confidentiality and its safeguarding limits.
  • Klein checked parts of the child's history with the parents and noted that the parents' attitudes affect the child's progress. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 35–36 n., 42 n., 45]

Phase 1: Assessment and establishing the analytic situation (first sessions)

  • Goals: offer the setting and toys and observe how the child uses them. From the first hour, interpret the anxiety and distrust the child shows, read as negative transference, so that the "analytical situation" is established. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 41, 46–47, 56; MKT technique] Klein addressed unconscious material in Richard's first session alongside his conscious worries. [source: MKT technique]
  • Contemporary services usually run a defined block of assessment sessions before recommending treatment. [synthesis; number not verified, uncertain]

Phase 2: Working through

  • Goals: follow the play from session to session. Interpret anxiety at the level where it is active, and let material that was interpreted early return and be worked over. Klein argued that interpretations given early would be taken up again later. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 49–50, 58–59] Play should become freer, more varied and more symbolic. Inhibitions in play, learning and relationships should ease. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 54, 62–63]

Phase 3: Ending

  • Goals: work with the child's feelings about separation, loss and gratitude in the transference. Klein's treatment of Richard had a fixed four-month limit for practical (wartime) reasons, and the ending was part of the material. [source: MKT technique] Planning, notice period and review with parents are [synthesis].

Session count and format

  • Klein's cases were long and open-ended. Rita had 83 sessions and Peter 278. [source: Klein 1932 p. 25 n., p. 41 n.] Richard had about four months of daily wartime treatment. ["daily": uncertain; the MKT page states four months]
  • Klein's own session frequency and length were not stated in the sources. [uncertain] Current UK training uses intensive work at three times weekly, plus once-weekly and short-term work. [source: Tavistock M80] Esther Bick's group argued that genuine psychoanalytic work with children is possible at frequencies below the five-times-weekly adult model. [source: Priya (INFLIBNET)]
  • Format: individual sessions in the same room, at fixed times, with the same materials. Parent work runs in parallel. [source: Klein 1932 p. 40; Tavistock M80; consistency of time and length: Priya (INFLIBNET), general play-therapy guidance]

Criteria for moving between phases [synthesis; not specified in the primary sources]

  • Phase 1 to 2: the child returns, plays in some form, and shows some response to interpretation, such as play resuming, anxiety lessening, or approaching the analyst. Klein gives Ruth's freer play after an interpretation as an example (Klein 1932 p. 54). The family can also sustain the frequency.
  • Phase 2 to 3: freer and more symbolic play; anxiety attacks and inhibitions reduced; better functioning at home and school, as reported by parents and school; more capacity for concern and repair in play. "Concern and repair" is a Kleinian depressive-position criterion and is her school's framework. Also an ending agreed with parents.

3. Guiding principles

  • Play is the child's free association. Practical meaning: treat everything the child does with the toys, water, paper, the room and you as communication to be understood, not just activity. [source: Garibaldi 2021; Klein 1932 pp. 40–41; Edwards 2009]
  • Interpret early, starting in the first session. Practical meaning: do not wait for a positive relationship to form before addressing anxiety and mistrust. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 46–47; MKT technique]
  • Address negative transference immediately, at all ages. Practical meaning: shyness, refusal, distrust or hostility towards you are the first things to understand and name. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 37–38, 46–47]
  • Interpret at the level of the active anxiety. Practical meaning: a bare symbol translation ("the train is Daddy") is not enough. Link the play to the fear and guilt that are driving it now. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 52, 58–59]
  • Speak the child's concrete language. Practical meaning: use the child's own words and the images of the play itself, plainly and directly. Avoid abstract adult terms. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 42 n., 61–62 n.; MKT technique on "matter-of-fact" directness]
  • Accept the roles the child assigns, and interpret why. Practical meaning: you may be the naughty child, the teacher or the victim. Play the part enough to let the drama unfold, then wonder aloud about its meaning. [source: Klein 1932 p. 44 n.; MKT beginnings; Priya (INFLIBNET)]
  • Keep a "friendly reserve". Practical meaning: stay warm and interested but not intrusive or chummy. Klein sat beside the child with what the Trust calls "reserved interest". [source: Klein 1932 p. 44 n.; MKT beginnings]
  • No educational or moral influence. Practical meaning: do not teach, praise good behaviour, moralise or advise the child. Leave the parenting to the parents. [source: Klein 1932 p. 36]
  • Understanding, not reassurance. Practical meaning: when the child is frightened, understanding and naming the fear helps more than soothing it away. Klein found reassurance raised Richard's anxiety and left him feeling his aggression had been smoothed over. [source: MKT technique; Klein 1932 pp. 54–55]
  • Take the child's worries seriously, with compassion. Practical meaning: be direct but kind. In the Kleinian view, naming the worst fears brings relief over time, though it is painful at first. [source: MKT technique]
  • Continuous interpretation lets anxiety out "in small doses". Practical meaning: keep up a steady flow of understanding through the session, rather than one large intervention, so anxiety does not build to overwhelm. [source: Klein 1932 p. 59]
  • The child chooses the material; the analyst follows. Practical meaning: offer the toys and let the child lead. Only if a child is quite inaccessible may you offer a minimal play "stimulus". [source: Klein 1932 p. 55 n. 1; Priya (INFLIBNET)]
  • A constant setting. Practical meaning: same room, same times, same simple toys, the child's own box, no interruptions. Constancy makes changes in the play meaningful. [source: Klein 1932 p. 40; Edwards 2009 (box of toys); Priya (INFLIBNET) (no interruptions); "constancy makes changes meaningful" is synthesis]
  • External reality counts too. Practical meaning: Klein worked with real-life concerns such as Richard's war fears alongside phantasy, and checked history with parents. Never treat a child's account of real harm as "only phantasy". [source: MKT technique; Klein 1932 p. 42 n.; safeguarding application is synthesis]

4. Intervention inventory

Note: all example therapist language is illustrative wording written for this guide. It is not Klein's text.

4.1 Preparing the playroom and play materials

  • Purpose: give the child a simple, constant medium for expressing phantasy in detail. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 40, 61–62]
  • Steps:
    1. Set out small, simple toys on a low table. Klein listed little wooden men and women, carts, carriages, motor cars, trains, animals, bricks and houses, plus paper, scissors and pencils. [source: Klein 1932 p. 40; MKT beginnings] For Richard she provided toys, a writing pad, pencils, chalks, a table and two chairs. [source: MKT technique]
    2. Provide a washbasin with running water. Klein used water play, often later in analysis, which brought out what her school understood as pre-genital material and the child's sexual theories. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 49, 54, 62–63]
    3. Keep each child's materials in a box of their own. Klein introduced the box of toys in place of the couch. [source: Edwards 2009] The detail that each box is kept privately for one child, and that damaged items stay in it, is widely taught but is not confirmed in the sources. [uncertain]
    4. Choose toys that are small, unstructured and easy to handle, so that many meanings can be given to them. Avoid elaborate themed toys. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 61–62; Priya (INFLIBNET)]
    5. Safety check (see 4.18): non-toxic drawing materials; round-ended scissors; short string; no choking-size pieces for very young children; remove broken toys with sharp edges; non-slip flooring by the sink; washable surfaces. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "These are the things we'll have here each time. This box is yours, for your things, and it stays here for our sessions."
  • Watch for: how the child approaches the toys (eagerly, warily, not at all) and what they do with the box between sessions (checking, guarding, damaging). This is early transference material. [synthesis]

4.2 Parent/carer consultation and history-taking

  • Purpose: understand the referral, the history and the external reality; secure the frame; learn the child's vocabulary. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 42 n., 45, 35–36 n.; Tavistock M80; Priya (INFLIBNET)]
  • Steps:
    1. Meet the parents or carers before the child starts. Ask about the presenting problem, development, family events, siblings, school and previous help.
    2. Ask for the child's own words for body parts, toileting and bodily functions. [source: Klein 1932 p. 42 n.]
    3. Agree times, frequency, holidays, missed-session policy and how parents will be supported. Contemporary practice often has a colleague see the parents separately. [uncertain whether this is standard] Explain that session content stays private unless there is a safety concern. [synthesis]
    4. Obtain informed consent from those with parental responsibility. Record who holds it, including for looked-after children. [synthesis]
    5. Review periodically. Klein checked parts of the history against the parents' accounts. [source: Klein 1932 p. 45]
  • Example language (illustrative): "I won't report what your child says or plays in detail, because they need a private space. I will meet you regularly to think about how things are going, and I will tell you straight away if I'm worried about anyone's safety."
  • Watch for: parental anxiety, rivalry with the therapist or wishes to end early. Klein noted that parents' attitudes affect progress (Klein 1932 pp. 35–36 n.). Also watch for family circumstances that suggest safeguarding concerns. [synthesis]

4.3 Obtaining the child's assent and opening the first session

  • Purpose: tell the child honestly why they are coming, and start the analytic situation. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 41, 46–47; assent wording is synthesis]
  • Steps:
    1. Explain briefly, in age-appropriate words, that you will meet regularly to understand the worries, and the child can play, draw or talk. Explain privacy and its limit (safety).
    2. Show the toys and the box. Let the child begin.
    3. Observe closely: the first play often already shows the child's central anxieties, even when inhibited. Klein describes Peter's first hour of arranging and crashing vehicles. [source: Klein 1932 p. 41]
    4. Begin interpreting as soon as there is material (see 4.4).
  • Example language (illustrative): "Mum and Dad told me you've been having frightening dreams and finding school hard. I'm someone whose job is to help children with worries. Here you can play with these things or draw or talk, and I'll try to understand with you what's going on inside."
  • Watch for: the child's understanding of why they are here; refusal to separate from the parent (see 5.1); immediate testing of limits.

4.4 Early interpretation of anxiety and negative transference

  • Purpose: reduce the anxiety and mistrust that block contact and play, so that the analytic situation is established. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 46–47, 56; MKT technique]
  • Steps:
    1. Notice signs of anxiety or distrust towards you: silence, hiding, clinging to the parent, refusal to play, hostility, too-good compliance. Klein read these as negative transference. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 37–38, 46–47]
    2. Name the feeling and link it to you and the situation: who the child may fear you are, or what they fear you will do.
    3. Where the play gives an image, connect the fear to it (see 4.6).
    4. Watch the response: Klein reports a child playing more freely and approaching her after such an interpretation. [source: Klein 1932 p. 54]
  • Example language (illustrative): "I think you are not sure about me. Perhaps you are worried I might be cross, like the man in the house who keeps knocking the others over."
  • Watch for: relief signs (play resumes, the child looks at you, moves closer) versus rising anxiety (see 5.3). The depth and wording of very early interpretations is where Klein's and Anna Freud's views most differ. Contemporary clinicians vary in how deep they go in the first session. [source: MKT beginnings; Edwards 2009; "vary" is synthesis]

4.5 Interpreting at the level of the active anxiety ("point of urgency")

  • Purpose: make interpretations effective by reaching the layer of the mind where anxiety is currently active. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 52, 58–59] ("Point of urgency" is a term used in the Kleinian literature; it was not confirmed in the 1932 pages read. [uncertain])
  • Steps:
    1. Follow the play to the moment of greatest tension, where anxiety or guilt seems strongest, play breaks off or the child turns to you.
    2. Ask yourself what the child fears will happen, to whom, and as a result of what wish.
    3. Interpret that link, rather than only translating the symbols.
    4. Time it: Klein stressed quick grasp of the material so that the interpretation arrives at the right moment. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 58–59]
  • Example language (illustrative): "When the cars crashed you stopped and looked at me. I think you got frightened that the crash was really bad, and that wanting to smash them might be dangerous."
  • Watch for: Klein held that superficial symbol translation is ineffective (p. 52). A purely intellectual "yes" or "no" matters less than how the play changes afterwards.

4.6 Interpreting the play as representation, in the child's own imagery

  • Purpose: let the child feel the meaning of the play in concrete terms they can use. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 61–62 and n.]
  • Steps:
    1. Treat toys, actions and sequences as representations of people, body parts and events in the child's inner and outer world. Klein read placement, closeness and order of toys as showing connections and the time order of experiences. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 61–62]
    2. Use the toys' own images and the child's own words, plainly. Klein used direct words for sexual matters, reasoning that children respond to the picture a word evokes. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 61–62 n.] Contemporary caution: use the child's own vocabulary, do not introduce sexual imagery the child has not brought, and stay within service policy and what parents have been told. [synthesis]
    3. Interpretations in Klein's cases often involved parental intercourse, rivalry with siblings, babies inside the mother, and attacks on the parents' bodies. These are her school's theory of the child's phantasy life. Offer such meanings tentatively and only when the material supports them. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 54, 61–62; MKT technique; "tentatively" is synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "This lady doll is shut in the house with all the little ones, and the boy can't get in. I think you feel shut out when Mummy is busy with the baby, and very angry about it."
  • Watch for: the play developing, elaborating or shifting (a response); repetition with mounting anxiety (the interpretation missed the anxiety, or came too fast). Never treat sexualised or violent play as evidence that abuse occurred (see 4.19 and 5.6).

4.7 Transference interpretation of positive and negative feelings

  • Purpose: in Klein's view, children form a transference from the start. Interpreting both loving and hostile feelings towards the analyst is essential. [source: MKT technique; Edwards 2009]
  • Steps:
    1. Track the child's feelings towards you: love, jealousy, possessiveness, hatred, fear of damaging you or of being damaged by you.
    2. Link them to the session's events (breaks, other patients, endings, your mood) and to figures in the play.
    3. Include rivalry with other patients. Klein interpreted Richard's jealousy of another boy who saw her. [source: MKT technique]
  • Example language (illustrative): "You saw another child leave just before you came. I think you hate the idea that I have other children, and you want me only for you."
  • Watch for: concern for you after aggressive play, or attempts to repair. In Kleinian theory these are signs of depressive-position functioning; that is the school's framework. [MKT technique]

4.8 Taking the roles the child assigns, and interpreting the assignment

  • Purpose: let the child stage their inner drama with you in it, then understand it. [source: Klein 1932 p. 44 n.; MKT beginnings; Priya (INFLIBNET)]
  • Steps:
    1. When the child casts you ("you be the baby", "you're the teacher and I'm naughty"), take the role with modest acting, following the child's script.
    2. Notice the role reversal. The child often gives you the part they suffer in, such as the punished or excluded one.
    3. At a fitting moment, step slightly out of role and interpret why you were given this part. [source: Klein 1932 p. 44 n.]
    4. Keep physical enactment symbolic: no real hitting, binding or tying up of the therapist. [synthesis; see 4.15]
  • Example language (illustrative): (in role) "Oh no, I've been put in the corner again." (then) "I think you want me to know how it feels to be the one who's always told off."
  • Watch for: the play escalating into real attacks, or the child losing the "as-if" frame. When that happens, stop the enactment and interpret (see 5.3).

4.9 Interpreting through a toy or doll (displacement)

  • Purpose: reach a child who is too frightened for direct interpretation. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 54–56]
  • Steps:
    1. Klein reports that with Ruth, who was in acute anxiety and could not be soothed, she played with a doll that showed fear and explained the doll's fear. Only then did she carry the interpretation over to the child. [source: Klein 1932 p. 56]
    2. Speak about the toy's feelings first, then bridge to the child.
  • Example language (illustrative): "This little girl is very frightened. She thinks something bad is inside the box… I wonder if you have a frightened feeling like that too, here with me."
  • Watch for: the child taking over the doll and continuing the story, which suggests the interpretation was received.

4.10 Working with acute anxiety attacks in the session

  • Purpose: reduce overwhelming anxiety through understanding rather than comfort. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 54–59; MKT technique]
  • Steps:
    1. Stay calm and present. Klein found a soothing, motherly approach failed with Ruth. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 54–55]
    2. Find what the anxiety is about, using the play that preceded it, and interpret (directly or via a toy, 4.9).
    3. Keep interpreting steadily, so anxiety is released "in small doses" (Klein 1932 p. 59).
    4. Ensure physical safety throughout; contemporary practice adds grounding if the child is dysregulated (see 5.3). [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "You got very scared just after you threw the lion at the mummy doll. I think you're frightened that something terrible will happen because you were so angry with her."
  • Watch for: Klein reports that Ruth's and Trude's anxiety eased once interpreted (Klein 1932 pp. 56–59). If panic escalates despite interpretation, the child may need regulation first, the session may need ending, and the case needs supervision. [synthesis]

4.11 Working with inhibited play

  • Purpose: free play that anxiety has inhibited. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 62–63]
  • Steps:
    1. Treat the smallest actions as material: which toy is touched or avoided, where the child stops, a chance remark. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 62–63]
    2. Interpret the inhibition itself and the anxiety behind it.
    3. Expect play to free up gradually under interpretation.
  • Example language (illustrative): "You picked up the little boy and then put him straight back. I think it feels dangerous to let him do anything in case it goes wrong."
  • Watch for: the inhibition shifting to another form (e.g. tidying, obsessive order). Address that too.

4.12 Offering a minimal play "stimulus" to an inaccessible child

  • Purpose: start play when a child gives almost nothing. [source: Klein 1932 p. 55 n. 1]
  • Steps:
    1. Klein sometimes began playing herself, offering something like a "stimulus-word" in play. One example was arranging seats and placing figures by them. She kept this within narrow limits and left the child to give the game its meaning. [source: Klein 1932 p. 55 n. 1]
    2. Make one small, neutral move and wait. Do not build a story for the child.
  • Example language (illustrative): (setting two chairs and a figure) "Here's someone waiting…" (then silence).
  • Watch for: the child taking over (good), or the child complying with your game (stop, and interpret the compliance).

4.13 Drawings and cutting-out

  • Purpose: use drawing as play material, especially with older children. [source: MKT technique; Klein 1932 p. 40; Narrative (via MKT resource page)]
  • Steps:
    1. Keep paper, pencils, chalks and scissors available. [source: Klein 1932 p. 40; MKT technique]
    2. Let the child draw freely. Follow the drawing's elements and sequence, and the child's comments.
    3. Interpret as with play. Klein linked Richard's starfish drawing to a hungry baby, the breast, jealousy and attacks on the parents, and read the split between the upper and lower parts of the drawing as what was kept unconscious. [source: MKT technique]
    4. Keep drawings in the child's box or file, and do not display them. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "This part up here is all neat and coloured in, and down here it's scribbled over. I wonder if there's a part of your feelings you'd rather keep hidden."
  • Watch for: drawings are not diagnostic of abuse or disorder. No validated Kleinian scoring system was found. [synthesis; uncertain]

4.14 Verbal associations, dreams and reports of daily life

  • Purpose: integrate talk, dreams and real-life events into the interpretive work. [source: Narrative via MKT resource page; MKT technique]
  • Steps: listen for the child's remarks while playing, dreams and school or home events. Link them to the play and the transference. Klein addressed Richard's real worries (war, family) alongside unconscious material. [source: MKT technique]
  • Example language (illustrative): "You told me about the bombs on the news, and then the train crashed into the house. I think there are frightening things outside, and frightening angry feelings inside, and they get mixed up."
  • Watch for: do not neglect external dangers (illness, violence, bereavement) in favour of phantasy alone. [synthesis]

4.15 Handling aggression towards the analyst, the toys and the room

  • Purpose: treat aggression as material to understand while keeping everyone safe. [source: Klein 1932 p. 25 (Trude's threats were interpreted, not acted on); MKT technique]
  • Steps:
    1. Interpret threats and aggressive play: their target, the wish and the fear of retaliation or damage. [source: Klein 1932 p. 25; MKT technique]
    2. Limit real physical attacks on you, self-harm, and serious damage to the room. Say clearly that hurting is not allowed, and interpret why the child needs to attack now. [synthesis; the 1932 pages read gave no explicit rules on limits]
    3. If attacks continue, move dangerous objects out of reach and pause the play. If necessary, end the session early, telling the child you will see them next time. [source: Priya (INFLIBNET), general play-therapy guidance; synthesis]
    4. Damaged toys can stay in the box as a record of what happened and of later attempts to repair. Klein's school would see such attempts as reparation. [uncertain: widely taught, not confirmed in the sources]
  • Example language (illustrative): "I won't let you hit me. I think you want to hurt me because I'm going away on holiday, and you're furious that I'm leaving you."
  • Watch for: guilt and anxiety following aggression, and the child's wish to repair. Repeated physical attacks call for supervision and parent review. [synthesis]

4.16 Abstaining from reassurance, advice and education

  • Purpose: keep the analytic stance so that anxiety can be understood rather than covered. [source: Klein 1932 p. 36; MKT technique]
  • Steps:
    1. When tempted to soothe ("don't worry, nothing bad will happen"), interpret instead.
    2. When asked for advice or praise, interpret the wish behind the request.
    3. If you do slip into reassurance, notice the effect and take it up later. Klein reported that reassurance made Richard more anxious and that she felt she had let him down. [source: MKT technique]
  • Example language (illustrative): "You'd like me to tell you it's all fine. I think part of you worries that I couldn't bear to hear how frightened and angry you are."
  • Watch for: abstaining is not coldness. Ordinary courtesy, warmth and attention to physical needs (toilet, illness, distress about real events) are part of the frame. [synthesis]

4.17 Age adaptations: latency and adolescence

  • Purpose: adjust the technique to the child's development. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 37–38; chapters IV–V not read: uncertain]
  • Steps:
    1. Latency (school-age): Klein noted that anxiety appears more as distrust, reserve or dislike, and play may be more controlled. Interpret the distrust early, as with younger children. Drawings, games and talk play a larger part. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 37–38; latency detail beyond this: uncertain]
    2. Puberty and adolescence: Klein noted obstinate, sometimes violent resistance. The principle of dealing with negative transference immediately still applies, with modifications. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 37–38] Talk usually takes over from toys. A smaller range of materials (paper, pens) can remain available. [synthesis]
    3. Very young children (Rita was 3): sessions in a safe, toddler-proof room. Parents may need to be nearby at first. No small swallowable items. [source: MKT beginnings for age; rest synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): (to a 14-year-old) "You've made it clear you don't want to be here. I think you're expecting me to be another adult who tells you what's wrong with you."
  • Watch for: older children experiencing toys as babyish. Offer choice rather than insisting on toy play. [synthesis]

4.18 Materials safety, physical safety and touch

  • Purpose: keep the room physically safe and the body boundary clear. [synthesis throughout; the sources do not address these]
  • Steps:
    1. Materials: non-toxic crayons, paints and modelling material; round-ended scissors; string cut to short lengths and never left with an unsupervised child (strangulation risk); no small parts for under-3s or for any child who mouths objects; check toys regularly and remove broken ones with sharp edges; ask about allergies (latex, foods, materials).
    2. Water: mop spills promptly and use a non-slip mat at the sink. Check the water is not hot. Never leave a young child alone with water.
    3. Room: remove heavy or breakable objects, secure windows and blind cords, and know the evacuation route.
    4. Touch: the therapist does not initiate hugs or holding. If a child seeks contact, respond in a limited, non-sexual way (for example, a brief side contact if the child is distressed) and interpret the wish. Ask permission before any necessary physical help. Never any sexual or genital touch, and never touch under clothing. Toileting help comes from the parent or carer, by prior arrangement. Physical holding to prevent injury only as a last resort, following service policy, and recorded and discussed with parents. Be sensitive to culture, and to children with trauma histories for whom closeness may be frightening or re-enact abuse.
    5. Sexualised behaviour towards the therapist: stop it calmly and clearly, interpret, record, discuss in supervision and consider safeguarding (4.19).
  • Example language (illustrative): "You want to climb onto my lap. We'll keep our bodies safe here, so I'll stay in my chair. I think you'd like to feel very close to me today, after the weekend."
  • Watch for: your own discomfort or reluctance to set limits. Take it to supervision.

4.19 Safeguarding, disclosures and the limits of play interpretation

  • Purpose: protect the child and keep the analytic understanding of phantasy separate from fact-finding. [synthesis; MKT technique supports attention to external reality]
  • Steps:
    1. At the start, tell the child and the parents that what happens in sessions is private, unless the therapist is worried that someone is being hurt or is in danger.
    2. If a child discloses harm in words, or play or behaviour raises a concern: listen; do not interpret it away as phantasy; do not ask leading questions or investigate. Record the child's words verbatim, with date and time. Follow your service's safeguarding procedure the same day, and consult the designated safeguarding lead.
    3. Mandatory-reporting and safeguarding duties vary by jurisdiction and by professional role. Know the law, the reporting threshold and the referral route where you practise. [synthesis]
    4. Sexual or violent play is not evidence of abuse. In Klein's theory, such phantasies are part of ordinary development, so the content of play alone neither proves nor rules out abuse. Concern should rest on what the child says, on behaviour and on the wider picture. Assessment is for the statutory agencies.
    5. Do not use Kleinian interpretations of play as findings in reports or court evidence about abuse.
  • Example language (illustrative): "Thank you for telling me. That is something I need to make sure grown-ups who keep children safe know about. I'll tell you what happens next."
  • Watch for: pressure to keep a secret (never promise this); a parent reacting to the content of sessions.

4.20 Session notes, supervision and countertransference

  • Purpose: support accurate understanding of complex material. [source: Narrative via MKT resource page (Klein kept careful notes of each session); Tavistock M80 (supervision); countertransference use is synthesis]
  • Steps:
    1. Write a process record after each session: sequence of play, words and interpretations, the child's responses.
    2. Take cases to regular supervision. Intensive training cases have individual supervision. [source: Tavistock M80]
    3. Notice your own feelings (boredom, irritation, protectiveness) as possible information about the child's states of mind. Contemporary post-Kleinian practice uses countertransference this way; Winnicott wrote "Hate in the Counter-Transference" in the same British psychoanalytic tradition. [source: Edwards 2009 for Winnicott; specific use in this method: synthesis]
  • Watch for: recording standards: keep process notes separate from clinical records where service policy permits, and store securely. [synthesis]

4.21 Breaks, separations and ending

  • Purpose: use breaks and the end of treatment as transference material, and end safely. [source: MKT technique (Richard's four-month limit and ending); planning: synthesis]
  • Steps:
    1. Give advance notice of breaks and of the end. Use a calendar if it helps a young child.
    2. Interpret reactions: anger, denial, damage to the box, wishes to stay or to leave early, sadness and gratitude.
    3. Review progress with parents, plan follow-up, and decide what happens to the box and drawings, such as keeping them for a set period. [synthesis]
  • Example language (illustrative): "There are three more times before we stop. Today you broke the fence round the farm. I think you're angry that I'm letting the animals out, letting you go, before you feel ready."
  • Watch for: regression near the end, which is often transient. The Klein Trust records Richard's words at the end expressing lasting friendship.

5. Handling problems

Most guidance here is synthesis. Where Klein's own texts address a problem, the source is given.

5.1 Child will not separate from the parent or enter the room

  • Klein read early shyness and distrust as negative transference to be interpreted at once. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 46–47] Interpret the fear of you and of being left, in simple words.
  • Practical options [synthesis]: let the parent sit in the room or the doorway for the first sessions, then withdraw gradually by plan. Interpret the child's feelings about the parent leaving. Agree this staged approach with the parents in advance.
  • Illustrative: "You're not sure what I'll do if Mummy goes out. Maybe you think I'm a stranger who might take you away from her."

5.2 Silence, refusal or "stuck" play (the same game for weeks)

  • Treat the refusal or repetition as material. Interpret what the child is protecting against, and the control they keep over you. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 62–63 (inhibited play)]
  • A minimal play "stimulus" is allowed within narrow limits. [source: Klein 1932 p. 55 n. 1]
  • If nothing changes over many weeks, review the interpretations in supervision: are they too abstract, too deep, too late, or missing the current anxiety (Klein 1932 pp. 52, 58–59)? Review frequency and external factors such as family stress or school problems with parents. Consider whether another approach suits the child better. [synthesis]

5.3 Overwhelm: panic, rage, dysregulation, losing the "as-if" frame

  • Klein's response was continuous interpretation of the anxiety, sometimes through a toy, rather than soothing. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 54–59]
  • Additional safeguards [synthesis]: for a child with trauma, developmental delay, autism or very poor regulation, first restore safety and a sense of the present. Lower your voice, simplify, name the feeling in a few words, slow the pace and reduce stimulation. Interpret only once the child can hear you. Stop enactments that become real (hitting, choking games, sexualised contact). End the session early if safety cannot be restored, tell the parent what was needed in general terms, and take the case to supervision promptly.
  • Very deep interpretation of sexual or aggressive phantasy early on can frighten some children. That is the core of Anna Freud's objection. [source: MKT beginnings] Adjust depth and pace to the child's capacity. [synthesis]

5.4 Aggression and destructiveness (towards you, the toys or the room)

  • See 4.15. Klein interpreted threats as material. [source: Klein 1932 p. 25] Set firm limits on real harm [synthesis]. Repeated serious attacks call for a review of the setting (a safer room, fewer hard objects), co-working or a change of approach. Discuss with parents, and consider whether the child needs a different level of care. [synthesis]

5.5 Parents: non-attendance, early withdrawal, intrusiveness, rivalry

  • Klein noted that the parents' attitudes affect progress. [source: Klein 1932 pp. 35–36 n.] Anna Freud stressed the parents' primary importance more than Klein did. [source: Edwards 2009]
  • Practical responses [synthesis]: offer regular parent meetings, ideally with a colleague. Explain early that children often get worse before improving and may resist coming. Do not report session content, but share general themes and progress. Address missed sessions directly with the parents and interpret the absences with the child. If the parents want to end prematurely, meet to understand the reasons and plan an ending rather than stopping abruptly. In separated families, establish who has parental responsibility and consent to treatment.

5.6 Concerns about abuse, neglect or domestic violence

  • See 4.19. Treat words and behaviour that suggest harm as possible reality, not only phantasy. Follow your local safeguarding procedure, and remember that mandatory-reporting duties vary by jurisdiction. Do not use play content as forensic evidence. Do not conduct investigative interviews in therapy sessions. [synthesis]
  • If the child's carer is the possible source of harm, take safeguarding advice before telling that carer. [synthesis]

5.7 Ruptures: the child feels misunderstood, humiliated or "told off"

  • Klein noted she sometimes slipped into reassurance and felt she had let Richard down, which reduced his trust. [source: MKT technique] Ruptures can also follow interpretations experienced as accusations. [synthesis]
  • Response [synthesis]: acknowledge the effect of your words on the child ("I think what I said felt like I was blaming you"). Interpret the hurt and anger in the transference. Check your wording: interpretations about the child's "badness" should be framed with the anxiety and the love alongside the hate.

5.8 Sexualised behaviour in the session

  • Stop physical contact calmly. Restate the body rule. Interpret the wish or the anxiety. Record what happened and take it to supervision. Consider whether the behaviour raises a safeguarding concern. Never respond with shock or punishment. [synthesis; see 4.18]

5.9 Child refuses toys as "babyish" (latency/adolescence)

  • Interpret the wish to be seen as grown up and the fear of being little. Offer paper, drawing, games and talk instead. [source for age-related distrust and resistance: Klein 1932 pp. 37–38; responses: synthesis]

5.10 Non-adherence: lateness, missed sessions, wanting to leave early

  • Treat lateness, wishes to leave and missed sessions as communications to interpret (e.g. anxiety about what happens here, anger at breaks). Keep the end time constant. Review attendance with the parents, who usually control it for younger children. [synthesis]

5.11 Damage to or loss of the child's box or materials

  • Do not simply replace damaged items at once. Talk with the child about the damage and their feelings about it. Replace hazardous items (sharp breaks). Keep the box secure between sessions, since other children interfering with it is a serious breach for the child. [synthesis; uncertain how far these details follow Klein]

5.12 Therapist's own difficulties

  • Strong feelings, collusion with defences, or avoiding limits and interpretations of aggression. Klein noted children can detect collusion with defences. [source: MKT technique] Use supervision and your personal analysis. [source: Tavistock M80 for the training requirement; application: synthesis]

Sources

Sources:

Books and papers cited:

  • Klein, M. (1932). The Psycho-Analysis of Children. London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis.
  • Klein, M. (1961). Narrative of a Child Analysis. (Writings of Melanie Klein, vol. 4.) [publisher not confirmed: uncertain]
  • Klein, M. (1955). The psycho-analytic play technique: its history and significance. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 25. [page range not confirmed: uncertain]
  • Freud, A. (1927). The Psychoanalytic Treatment of Children. [as listed in Edwards 2009; edition not confirmed]
  • Alvarez, A. Live Company; Lanyado, M. & Horne, A. A Question of Technique; Winnicott, D. W. Playing and Reality and "Hate in the Counter-Transference". [named in Edwards 2009; years not confirmed: uncertain]

Further reading (not drawn on): the Klein Trust pages "Klein's legacy in contemporary child psychotherapy" and "Kleinian technique". Contemporary-practice details are therefore drawn from the Tavistock and Edwards sources, or marked as synthesis.

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