Susan Isaacs: a life freeing the minds of children

Abstract

This biography provides a critical account of the life and work of Susan Isaacs (1885-1948). This educationist, a pioneer of child-centred education in Britain was also an early and historically important child psychoanalyst. She is described in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as the greatest influence on British education in the twentieth century. Yet she is virtually unknown in both educational and psychoanalytic circles. When Melanie Klein was threatened with expulsion from the British Psychoanalytic Society she was by far her most powerful advocate and thus played a major role in determining the direction of British psychoanalysis from the 1940s onwards. This book provides an account of her life and contains much intimate material about her childhood, her marriage and her work that was previously unknown. It gives a fascinating insight into many facets of her life and concludes with an appraisal of her impact on the worlds of education and psychoanalysis.