British Psychoanalytical Society Research Articles

Learning from Life

“This book is full of psychoanalytic wisdom about how to be with a traumatised patient, how to think about a patient who does not attend, how to make trial identifications with patients to support and inform internal supervision, and much more. I recommend Learning from Life to anyone who values the link between the exploration of themselves and their work with patients and clients.” Donald Campbell, British Psychoanalytical Society

Reassessing the clinical affinity between Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott (1935-51): Klein's unpublished "Notes on baby" in historical context.

The author investigates the clinical affinity between Klein and Winnicott (1935-46) asa way to historically situate Winnicott 's later criticism of Klein's 'temperamental' inability to understand the impact of the environment on the infant's development. By setting out Klein s theories at the time when Winnicott began supervision with her in 1935, a context is established for the analysis of an unpublished 1937 manuscript by Klein ('Notes on baby'). The author argues that this direct and extensive infant observation demonstrates Klein's sensitivity to the familial environment. While Winnicott as a paediatrician showed enthusiasm for Klein s ideas, he also demonstrated a difference of opinion in emphasising the maternal environment of provision after his wartime evacuation experiences with London children. The factors leading to their mutual distancing are outlined as follows: (1) the post-Controversial Discussion atmosphere of the British Psycho-Analytical Society in 1944. The new non-aligned psychoanalytic 'middle group' allowed Winnicott to take a pick and choose attitude towards available analytic theories; (2) Winnicott us new clinical practices and theory differed from Klein 's, leading to a widening gap between 1946 and 1951. Winnicott's new theory and practice simultaneously represented his technical marginalisation of Klein s emphasis on the direct analysis of the patient s destructiveness by the time he delivered the 'Transitional objects' paper in 1951.

ANXIETIES UNDERLYING PHOBIA OF SEXUAL INTERCOURSE IN A WOMAN

British Journal of PsychotherapyVolume 18, Issue 1 p. 7-21 ANXIETIES UNDERLYING PHOBIA OF SEXUAL INTERCOURSE IN A WOMAN Esther Bick, Corresponding Author Esther Bick ESTHER BICK was a Member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, qualified in both adult and child analysis, and, along with John Bowlby, founded the Tavistock Clinic's child psychotherapy training. This paper has been edited by Roger Willoughby.Address for correspondence: 8 Castle Hill Avenue, Folkestone, Kent, CT20 2QT. [email: roger@willoughbywarren.com]Search for more papers by this author Esther Bick, Corresponding Author Esther Bick ESTHER BICK was a Member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, qualified in both adult and child analysis, and, along with John Bowlby, founded the Tavistock Clinic's child psychotherapy training. This paper has been edited by Roger Willoughby.Address for correspondence: 8 Castle Hill Avenue, Folkestone, Kent, CT20 2QT. [email: roger@willoughbywarren.com]Search for more papers by this author First published: 17 November 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0118.2001.tb00003.xCitations: 3AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume18, Issue1September 2001Pages 7-21 RelatedInformation

The Nature of the Transference Between Anna Freud and Melanie Kleins: Learning from the Controversies

As we work through our theories, we rejoice in discovering the logic of concepts and their articulation in clinical experience. Such joy hides other movements, in which the only stakes are demands for love, sexual curiosity and the satisfaction of hate, transferred from infancy to others worlds, idealised or despised. When we participate in our psychoanalytical institutions, we feel pride or even vanity to be participating in the great historical movement of psychoanalysis. This conceals the working of transference in our institutional life; transference which is crudely sexual at its origins, and implies maternal, paternal or fraternal objects. This is its constraining power. We should be fully aware of this, as Strachey or Balint have already shown, in order to attenuate the violence of transference and stimulate our creativity. Anna Freud and Melanie Klein's controversies had a reality of their own. This reality was quickly forgotten and trapped in various conflicts, as those existing between Jones and Freud or between Glover and the rest of the British Psychoanalytical Society of his times. These re-elaborations gave rise to ideological elements, which have ever since pervaded the history of psychoanalytical theory, influencing psychoanalytical methods and clinics. It is important for us today to elucidate these ideologies in order to improve our achievements.

The Correspondence of Edward Glover and Lawrence S. Kubie

Lawrence S. Kubie, one of psychoanalysis's distinguished thinkers, had gone from America to be analyzed in London by Edward Glover in 1928-1930. Glover, in spite of all his achievements as a thinker and publicist, has had a bad press ever since he resigned from the British Psycho-Analytical Society in 1944. These letters illustrate not just the successful personal relationship between Kubie and Glover, and how both of them were interested in research, but some of their respective struggles within the psychoanalytic movement. Kubie, who was for a time President of the New York Psychoanalytic Society, was able to help Glover remain within the International Psychoanalytic Association by securing for Glover honorary membership in the American Psychoanalytic Association. Glover, who for years had been Ernest Jones's second-in-command, encountered some of the resentment at Jones's autocratic manner of running the British Society. But Glover had taken a key role, allied with Anna Freud, in dissecting Melanie Klein's theories during the World War II Controversial Discussions. (Klein's daughter Melitta Schmideberg, an analysand and supporter of Glover's, was also in touch with Kubie.) After Glover withdrew, and before he successfully became a member of the Swiss Psychoanalytic Society, Kubie secured an offer for Glover to become Clinical Director of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. Although Glover decided to stay in London, he remained an outsider; Glover suffered not just from the circumstances of the clash occasioned by the arrival of analysts loyal to Anna Freud and her father's judgment about Klein's ‘deviation’, but his own ideological intolerances ensured his isolation. He was, however, an administrative success at the ISTD, the Portman Clinic, as well as the British Journal of Criminology, and as a teacher of someone like Kubie, who in his own way also became a maverick within American psychoanalysis.

PATRONAGE IN THE DISPUTE OVER CHILD ANALYSIS BETWEEN MELANIE KLEIN AND ANNA FREUD - 1927-1932

The author investigates the role of patrons and advocates for Melanie Klein's clinical ideas at the British Psycho-Analytical Society against the backdrop of her theoretical and technical differences with Anna Freud from 1927 to 1932. He also outlines the development of Klein and Anna Freud's theories and techniques within the nascent discipline of child psychoanalysis. The London and Viennese patrons/advocates contributed to polarising what initially were clinical differences about how to analyse pre-latency and latency-age children and which technical processes might best facilitate successful treatment. While the author speculates that a diversity of motivations and agendas may have driven the London group's support for Klein--personal and politicised enthusiasm (Jones), genuine conviction (Riviere) and attempts at theoretical rapprochement between the London and Vienna schools (Glover)--he also argues that Freud's diagnosis with cancer in 1923 and suspicion of patricidal son-successors necessitated the choice of a female successor with unquestioning loyalty to his doctrines. From 1932, when Klein's clinical authority was established, her first group of English supporters began to splinter, as she went on to become a training analyst, mentor and patron in her own right to a succeeding generation of adherents who defended her views during the Controversial Discussions.

The development and organization of attachment: implications for psychoanalysis.

As a result of John Bowlby's breach with the British Psychoanalytic Society nearly forty years ago, his work, specifically the development of attachment theory, was until recently largely expunged from the psychoanalytic record. However, thanks to developments in both psychoanalytic and attachment theories, a rapprochement has been forged, and a number of scholars are now seeking to integrate these two complementary perspectives. In this paper, the fundamental premises of attachment theory are discussed in light of their relation to psychoanalytic theory. In addition, their application to the clinical situation in both adult and child treatment is discussed.

Creativity and Transcendence in the Work of Marion Milner

Marion Milner was a British psychoanalyst whose life spanned the major part of the twentieth century. Unlike D.W. Winnicott, her contemporary and friend, Milner has yet to be discovered by scholars of religious studies. 1 Like Winnicott, her work lends itself well to the study of religious symbolism from the perspective of the early infant-mother relationship. In addition, Milner wrote extensively about the nature of creativity, and, to some degree, its relationship to transcendence. In this essay I investigate Milner's view of "creativity" as a vehicle for experiencing transcendence. In the course of exploration, I also address the role of unconscious processes in religious experience. To do so I look at a portion of the corpus of Milner's work in three parts: 1) her articles on Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job, 2) Milner's last published diary, Eternity's Sunrise, and 3) her published account of work with a schizophrenic patient in The Hands of the Living God. These three foci, along with references to other works, provide a fairly accurate picture of Milner's understanding of the relationship between creativity, transcendence, and the unconscious. I) Milner's Interest in Creativity Marion Milner was born in London in 1900 as Marion Blackett, in a family of modest means. Since an excellent biography can be found elsewhere, 2 in tracing Milner's life trajectory I will limit myself primarily to discussing her intellectual interests and career pursuits. When she was seventeen, Milner left school and obtained a position teaching a young boy how to read. The position was extremely fortuitous, in that Milner's work with the boy sparked her interest in how [End Page 185] individuals discover the ability to concentrate. Milner later obtained a university degree in psychology and physiology at University College, London. Upon graduation she commenced a position in vocational guidance and mental testing for the Vocational Guidance Department of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology. Two years later Milner began writing a diary exploring her own thinking processes, published in 1934 as A Life of One's Own (under the pseudonym Joanna Field). A second book, An Experiment in Leisure, was written while she was on leave from a project investigating the educational system of the Girls' Public Day School Trust. This book also examines the unconscious processes of her own mind. Milner's third book, The Human Problem in Schools (1938), resulted from the aforementioned school project. Upon returning to the school project, Milner entered into part-time psychoanalysis with Sylvia Payne. This choice of analyst put her "neither in the analytic stream led by Anna Freud nor in that led by Melanie Klein, for I did not even know that there was a deep controversy both in theory and practice between these two pioneers of the psychoanalysis of children" (Milner 1987b, 6). In 1939, the outbreak of the war put a moratorium on Milner's work in schools, and during this period she wrote her fourth book, On Not Being Able to Paint. This work is an extension of many of her earlier ideas, and it also explores the relationship between creativity and the analytic process. In 1940 Milner was accepted for training by the British Psycho-Analytic Society and subsequently began a new career as a psychoanalyst. In addition to her many psychoanalytic papers published in The Suppressed Madness of Sane Men: Forty-four Years of Exploring Psychoanalysis (1987), Milner's book The Hands of the Living God (1969) makes a significant psychoanalytic contribution in its meticulous record of a lengthy analysis with a schizophrenic patient. Her final book, Eternity's Sunrise (1987), is an account of her personal spiritual journey and captures the main themes in her life experience as an artist, psychoanalyst, and spiritual pilgrim. Marion Milner died in 1998. Both Melanie Klein and D.W. Winnicott significantly influenced the direction of Milner's work (Dragstedt 1998, 442-450). [End Page 186] Klein, for...

The Organizing of Psychoanalysis in Britain

This paper describes the organizations that were the earliest attempts to establish psychoanalysis formally in Britain. This process of institutionalization occurred between the years 1910 and 1925. Interest flowered at times in the universities and in the progressive school movement. However these seem to have been more ephemeral developments. It was the clinical and professional interest which demanded the first and most long-lasting base. A complex process of interaction between a number of organizations occurred. Their memberships initially intermingled and overlapped until the British Psycho-Analytical Society was consolidated by the mid-1920s.

DEEP CALLING UNTO DEEP: ARTISTIC CREATIVITY AND THE MATERNAL OBJECT

British Journal of PsychotherapyVolume 14, Issue 4 p. 453-467 DEEP CALLING UNTO DEEP: ARTISTIC CREATIVITY AND THE MATERNAL OBJECT Ken Wright, Corresponding Author Ken Wright DR KEN WRIGHT is an Associate Member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and author of Vision and Separation. A version of this paper was read to the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health (Vic), Melbourne, in May 1997 and will be published in the Australian Journal of Psychotherapy with the title: ‘Deep calling unto deep: Artistic creativity and mother-infant dialogue’.Address for correspondence: Dr Ken Wright, Slaney House, Magdalen Road, Hadleigh, Suffolk IP7 5AD.Search for more papers by this author Ken Wright, Corresponding Author Ken Wright DR KEN WRIGHT is an Associate Member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and author of Vision and Separation. A version of this paper was read to the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health (Vic), Melbourne, in May 1997 and will be published in the Australian Journal of Psychotherapy with the title: ‘Deep calling unto deep: Artistic creativity and mother-infant dialogue’.Address for correspondence: Dr Ken Wright, Slaney House, Magdalen Road, Hadleigh, Suffolk IP7 5AD.Search for more papers by this author First published: 17 November 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0118.1998.tb00407.xCitations: 3AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume14, Issue4June 1998Pages 453-467 RelatedInformation

Bowlby before Bowlby: the sources of an intellectual departure in psychoanalysis and psychology.

John Bowlby's first scientific papers express a viewpoint of the etiology of childhood disorders that gradually developed during his university years and the first years of his professional life. As becomes clear from, among other things, Bowlby's private correspondence, it was the period spent as a student at Cambridge, his work as a teacher at two progressive schools, and his work at a child guidance clinic that allowed him to articulate a view on childhood deviancy that was at variance with the Kleinian variant of psychoanalysis. Bowlby's position as an 'independent' thinker in the British Psycho-Analytical Society can be understood against the background of these intellectual influences.

Bowlby before Bowlby: The sources of an intellectual departure in psychoanalysis and psychology

John Bowlby's first scientific papers express a viewpoint of the etiology of childhood disorders that gradually developed during his university years and the first years of his professional life. As becomes clear from, among other things, Bowlby's private correspondence, it was the period spent as a student at Cambridge, his work as a teacher at two progressive schools, and his work at a child guidance clinic that allowed him to articulate a view on childhood deviancy that was at variance with the Kleinian variant of psychoanalysis. Bowlby's position as an ‘independent’ thinker in the British Psycho-Analytical Society can be understood against the background of these intellectual influences. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

D.W. Winnicott: a biographical portrait

A distillation of painstaking research into the life of Donald Winnicott, tracing his life from his childhood in Plymouth, through his career in paediatrics, to his election as President of the British Psycho-Analytic Society. The author makes many interesting links between Winnicott's life and the development of his theories.

1 Sexuality and Psychoanalysis: Hysteria

British Journal of PsychotherapyVolume 12, Issue 4 p. 473-479 1 Sexuality and Psychoanalysis: Hysteria Juliet Mitchell, Juliet Mitchell This paper is edited from the tape of the talk given by Juliet Mitchell at University College London on 19 October 1995. Juliet Mitchell is a Member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and a visiting professor at Cornell University, USA.Search for more papers by this author Juliet Mitchell, Juliet Mitchell This paper is edited from the tape of the talk given by Juliet Mitchell at University College London on 19 October 1995. Juliet Mitchell is a Member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society and a visiting professor at Cornell University, USA.Search for more papers by this author First published: June 1996 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0118.1996.tb00842.xCitations: 6 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume12, Issue4June 1996Pages 473-479 RelatedInformation

Emigration of German psychiatrists to England. 1: England as a refuge for psychiatrists

During Nazi time some 100 German psychiatrists emigrated to the U.K. and worked there for the rest of their lives or a number of years. An approximately equal number of them came into close contact with (a) the developing modern British psychiatry and (b) with psychoanalysis, which had already been established for a long time. With the exception of the Maudsley Hospital and the British Psychoanalytic Society, no groups have been established, so that there are many individual life histories of the former German psychiatrists in the U.K. in a series of papers we intend to review the movement and its consequences. Long before the emigration movement began there were already convergent evolutions in the British and German psychiatry. The current paper studies the historical conditions encountered by the psychiatric clinicians and classical-psychiatric immigrants on their arrival in Britain.

Reminiscences of a Survivor: Psychoanalysis 1937–1993

British Journal of PsychotherapyVolume 11, Issue 3 p. 453-457 Reminiscences of a Survivor: Psychoanalysis 1937–1993 Charles Rycroft, Corresponding Author Charles Rycroft This article was originally given as a Graduation Address for the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, Regent's College, in December 1993. Charles Rycroft, one-time member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, is in full-time private practice.Address for correspondence: 2 Modbury Gardens, London NW5 3QESearch for more papers by this author Charles Rycroft, Corresponding Author Charles Rycroft This article was originally given as a Graduation Address for the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, Regent's College, in December 1993. Charles Rycroft, one-time member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, is in full-time private practice.Address for correspondence: 2 Modbury Gardens, London NW5 3QESearch for more papers by this author First published: March 1995 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0118.1995.tb00753.xCitations: 5 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume11, Issue3March 1995Pages 453-457 RelatedInformation

History of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy

British Journal of PsychotherapyVolume 11, Issue 3 p. 415-421 History of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy Michael R. Pokorny, Corresponding Author Michael R. Pokorny This paper is based on talks given at various times on the history of the psychotherapy profession to the Guild of Psychotherapists, the Arbours Association and the Universities Psychotherapy Association. Michael Pokorny is a member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, the London Centre for Psychotherapy and The Universities Psychotherapy Association. He is an Honorary Member of AGIP and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.Address for correspondence: 167 Sumatra Road, London NW6 1PN.Search for more papers by this author Michael R. Pokorny, Corresponding Author Michael R. Pokorny This paper is based on talks given at various times on the history of the psychotherapy profession to the Guild of Psychotherapists, the Arbours Association and the Universities Psychotherapy Association. Michael Pokorny is a member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society, the London Centre for Psychotherapy and The Universities Psychotherapy Association. He is an Honorary Member of AGIP and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.Address for correspondence: 167 Sumatra Road, London NW6 1PN.Search for more papers by this author First published: March 1995 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0118.1995.tb00748.xCitations: 1 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume11, Issue3March 1995Pages 415-421 RelatedInformation

The Clinical Implications of Attachment Theory

ABSTRACTThe work of John Bowlby, although influential in developmental psychology and social psychiatry, has had relatively little impact within his parent discipline of psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The paper traces Bowlby's relationship with the British Psychoanalytic Society, contrasting his ideas with those of Klein. Drawing on recent findings in developmental psychology stimulated by Attachment Theory, it outlines the clinical relevance of the concepts of the secure base and narrative, and reviews notions of defence and the Oedipal situation from the attachment perspective. Attachment Theory is not a new ‘school’ of psychotherapy but addresses principles which underlie all effective therapies. An extended case study is described illustrating these points.

Commentary by a Psycho‐analyst

British Journal of PsychotherapyVolume 11, Issue 1 p. 132-135 Commentary by a Psycho-analyst Ronald Baker, Ronald BakerSearch for more papers by this author Ronald Baker, Ronald BakerSearch for more papers by this author First published: September 1994 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0118.1994.tb00712.x Member, British Psycho-Analytical Society AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume11, Issue1September 1994Pages 132-135 RelatedInformation

Melanie Klein and the "Oresteia Complex": Love, Hate, and the Tragic Worldview

'reud's concept of the Oedipus is well known. Well known too is how this complex-particularly as expressed in the myth of the primal horde-not merely explains a little boy's love for his mother but the origins of civilized society as well. As such, the Oedipus is really a worldview, for it is an account of human nature as well as the nature of society. In contrast to the Oedipus I set the Oresteia complex as developed by Melanie Klein (although she did not identify it as such). A contemporary of Anna Freud, Klein, like the Freuds, fled Germany and went to England (Klein's father was a student of the Talmud, her mother the daughter of a rabbi). For a number of years during and immediately after the war, Klein was the leading intellectual force in the British Psychoanalytic Society, at that time the most influential psychoanalytic society in the world.1 She stressed the continuity between her work and that of Sigmund Freud, which may have been a political position on her part. In