Some Personal Recollections And Impressions Of Harry Guntrip

Harry Guntrip will be known to most readers, and a generation of students, as the author of ‘Personality Structure and Human Interaction’, and of ‘Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self. These books are still an extremely clear and well argued presentation of the development of psychoanalytic theory. The first was an enormous labour of digesting, criticising and organising all the major psychoanalytic contributions into a theoretical whole that was a statement of faith by the author. The second linked some of the papers that continuously flowed from him throughout life. Both are a witness to his drive and his intellect. This paper is a memoir of almost thirty years’ friendship, and shows something of the man and the therapist who made the books possible. It gives some picture of his life, his personality and his problems with health. In conclusion Guntrip's paper on his analysis with Fairbairn and Winnicott is discussed. The author considers that Guntrip's forte, an understanding of the schizoid problem, has its roots in a personal limitation revealed in his experience of analysis. He needed to be in intellectual control, and had great difficulty in emotional letting go.