Psychoanalysis and history are inextricably bound. No-one practising the former can do so without a fine respect for the latter and a firm belief in the influence it exerts on the here and now. So it is both pleasurable and salutary to be firmly reminded from time to time of one's professional links with the past and of its relevance to ongoing work.

For past graduates of the Anna Freud Centre (originally the Hampstead Clinic) this book will be a rewarding encounter with the familiar, akin to re-reading a “family history” that awakens innumerable personal memories. For other readers it will provide insights into some aspects of developmental work with children which have become central to our thinking. It shows how, for instance, the baby observations of today began in Vienna in the 1920s with Charlotte Bühler who constructed developmental profiles of babies from observational studies in which she was helped and trained, both by Ilse Hellman and Esther Bick. And how, from 1942 onwards, Ilse Hellman worked in the