‘Psychoanalysis for the Many’: Melitta Schmideberg's Work with Offenders in Psychoanalytic Free Clinics

In current histories of psychoanalysis, Melitta Schmideberg still lives under the shadow of her mother, Melanie Klein. If Schmideberg’s name is mentioned at all, it is in the context of the so-called Controversial Discussions that took place at the British Psychoanalytical Society in the early 1940s, in which Schmideberg directly questioned Klein’s views. In terms of psychoanalytic contributions, Schmideberg’s decades-long work with juvenile and adult offenders is barely mentioned. This article attempts to correct this imbalance by looking at Schmideberg’s innovations in offender therapy. Schmideberg understood that the available methods of psychoanalytic therapy (whether Freudian or Kleinian) would not suit patients she engaged with (antisocial, borderline and psychotic patients) and developed her own methodology of working with these groups. The article explores Schmideberg’s methods, while focusing specifically on the flexibility of the time, money and spatial frame, the role of reassurance, questions of transference as well as what she called ‘group therapy in reverse’. It also presents her virtually unknown work at the Association for the Psychiatric Treatment of Offenders, an institution she founded in the USA, and her thoughts on the role of class in the care system.