Harry Guntrip

Our readers may remember the first article of Volume I, No. 1 of this Journal, “Science, Psychodynamic Reality, and Autistic Thinking,” by Harry Guntrip. We could not have begun our publication in a better way, for the author was a great analyst and innovator. Harry Guntrip is no longer with us; he died on February 18, 1975. A letter from his daughter, Mrs. Gwen M. Greenald, informed us of his death.

Dr. Guntrip was known at first as a scholar of Fairbairn's, and his first publications consisted of making clear to a large audience the contributions of his master. Later he added his own works which in a short period of time acquired the rank of classic in the psychoanalytic literature. I am referring especially to Personality, Structure and Human Interaction, 1961; Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self, 1968; and Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy and the Self, 1971. Another major book dealing with Fairbairn's impact on psychoanalysis was in preparation at the time of Dr. Guntrip's death and may be published posthumously.

Earlier works include books for a larger readership, which were translated into numerous foreign languages. Among his recent articles are to be mentioned Chapter 39 of the Second Edition of the American Handbook of Psychiatry on “Psychoanalytic Object Relations Theory” and “My Experience of Analysis with Fairbairn and Winnicott,” which appeared in the International Review of Psychoanalysis, 1975.

Dr. Guntrip was born in London on May 29, 1900. His father was a coal factor's ledger clerk in the city of London, who in his spare time was a gifted lay preacher. His mother kept a draper's shop. In 1928 Dr. Guntrip married Bertha Kind, at that time a nurse in the Royal Free Hospital in London. Their only child is a daughter, now an educational psychologist.

From 1935 to 1946 he was a minister of Salem Congregational Church. In 1946 he left the church to devote himself fulltime to the psychotherapeutic work which had been steadily growing over