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This book is an edited collection of papers about the creative and original women who, having been at the heart of what became the Independent tradition within British psychoanalysis, were also crucial in the elaboration of British psychoanalysis
more broadly. Perhaps too often the history of the British School is reduced to the dramatic encounters between Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, as though the Independent tradition somehow came out of analysts who did not have or develop a coherent body of thought and clinical practice which could stand up to the kind of scrutiny that was afforded to those two great pioneers. And certainly, the big names associated with the Independent group were largely male—Balint, Winnicott and latterly Bollas, Casement, Parsons amongst others. However, the women who are lauded in this volume each come alive in a series of essays that portray their originality, close attention to their clinical practice and courage to speak out in an institutional atmosphere that has often been antipathetic to their ideas.
The book comes from the collaboration of Elizabeth Wolf (training analyst and Fellow) and Barbie Antonis (Fellow) of the BPAS, who for many years have taught a course about the contribution of independent women as part of the training at the Institute of Psychoanalysis (BPAS). Together they commissioned both seasoned, senior analysts from the BPAS and several of the next generation to contribute to this collection. They are all Fellows or Training Analysts of the BPAS and members of the Association of Independent Psychoanalysts.
The introduction by the co-editors is not only an account of their own creative partnership, but also a description of the anxiety about the atmosphere within which Independent theory and clinical practice was felt to be in danger of fading from view as the BPAS became more dominated by the Klein group. They evoke the sense of a lively engagement on the part of members of the Association to that predicament, movi