Ella Freeman Sharpe—An Appreciation

Psycho-analysis is a young science and those who have proved their greatness through their contributions to psycho-analysis are few in number. Freud himself with the epoch-making character of his work is perhaps too close to us to make it possible to pay adequate tribute to those who have followed him.

During the last year the International Psycho-Analytical Association has lost three of its most valued members who were each in their individual ways unusually gifted exponents of psycho-analysis. I refer to Otto Fenichel, Hans Sachs and Ella Freeman Sharpe. Much has already been written about Fenichel and his book on The Theory of the Neuroses will be studied by students of psycho-analysis for many years to come.

Hans Sachs and Ella Sharpe were not doctors of medicine and the contributions which they have made have much in common. They approached the study of psycho-analysis with a specialist's knowledge of literature, poetry and drama, and an insatiable interest in the human mind.

Their contributions to psycho-analysis could not have been made by those who in taking up a medical career, are bound to spend years concentrated on the study of physical medicine. The work of such distinguished analysts without medical qualifications reveals the immense importance of psycho-analysis not only to medicine but also for the understanding of all human problems.

Ella Sharpe was one of those who grasped the significance of psycho-analysis as soon as she became acquainted with Freud's work. Circumstances influenced by the early death of her father demanded that she should care for her mother and sisters rather as an eldest son might have done. She was born near Cambridge in 1875, and was educated in Nottingham. After three years at Nottingham University she gave up an opportunity of going to Oxford University in order to help support her family. She became English mistress and co-head with a man of the Hucknall Pupil Teachers Training Centre for boys and girls between the ag