Empires of mind: postcolonial cartographies of ‘The Empire’ in Melanie Klein's Narrative of a Child Analysis

This article analyzes the extensive archive of artwork produced by Melanie Klein’s child-patient “Richard” in Narrative of a Child Analysis. Focusing specifically on Richard’s drawings of what he called “The Empire,” I explore the geopolitical significance of these images by using postcolonial theory to show how they bring the midcentury politics of imperial expansion into the clinical relation. Throughout this article, I consider how the Empire drawings speak to the entanglement of psychic life with social history and contend that their abstract, non-representational aesthetic engages in a nuanced critique of imperialism. Taking Richard’s drawings as more than mere child’s play, I read them as providing an opening through which to visualize the decolonial political potentiality of the clinic.