On Becoming a British Psychoanalyst

Abstract

This article describes a personal journey from social anthropology to psychoanalysis, first through training at the British Psychoanalytical Society from 1956 to 1964, then to becoming a Member and Training Analyst. I describe the development of a career involving the usual things a psychoanalyst is likely to do in addition to clinical practice: supervising students, participation in seminars and discussions with colleagues, teaching, writing, serving on various committees, being editor of a series of psychoanalytic books, and trips abroad to teach and to consult with colleagues about other points of view. This is the bare bones, but I also try to describe the development of some of my psychoanalytic views and attitudes, including a brief look at the British Society with an ex-anthropologist's eye.

Notes

¹Hedwig Hoffer belonged to what was then called the B Group. She would now be called “Contemporary Freudian” (CF). Roger Money-Kyrle was Kleinian (K). Because the three groups were important in my experience of the Society, I will identify people's groups as I proceed: “CF” for Contemporary Freudian; “Ind” for Independent; “K” for Kleinian.

²In my personal idiom, the phrase “just visiting” originated many years ago when an artist friend looked around her tiny, chaotic Paris flat occupied by her husband, her young baby, her pregnant self, and an immense amount of clutter. “I'm not living in this,” she said, “I'm just visiting.”