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Harry Guntrip (1961, 1971) is unquestionably the most comprehensive interpreter of Fairbairn's object-relational theory of the personality Recently, however, it has become fashionable to claim that Guntrip distorts Fairbairn. For example, Kernberg (1980) says Guntrip has “uncritically idealized” Fairbairn's theories and stretched them to confirm his own bias (pp. 42-3); Greenberg and Mitchell (1983, pp. 213-9) accuse him of gross inaccuracy, Hughes (1989, p. 117) finds it “ironic” that Guntrip should be Fairbairn's chief representative, and Rinsley (1994) dismisses Guntrip's exposition of Fairbairn as subtly misleading.
I will argue that these aspersions are unfounded My view is that Guntrip certainly does diverge from Fairbairn, but not because he misrepresents him.
Criticisms of Guntrip's interpretation of Fairbairn appear to rest substantially on interpretations of his autobiographical paper, “My Experience of Analysis with Fairbairn and Winnicott (How Complete a Result Does Psycho-Analysis Achieve?)” (Guntrip 1975) It is chiefly on account of this paper that several authors have frowned upon Guntrip's character and his behaviour as an analysand (Glatzer & Evans 1977, Pontalis & Rosolato in Anzieu et al 1977; Hughes 1989). The charges are pathological narcissism, grandiosity, and compulsiveness; Guntrip is portrayed as a remarkably selfish and