This article is my own but I do not own it. It emerged in conversation with many people too numerous to name, but my gratitude is especially great to my friends Dr A. C. Macfie and Mr J. Seddon. Many of their ideas are incorporated, sometimes almost unchanged, and sometimes transmuted. But direct acknowledgement could not be made for particular passages; it is not possible to sort out bits and pieces from the alchemical retort heated by ‘the central fire’—even if it were desirable. It was Craigie Macfie who first drew my attention to the central importance of loneliness in psychotherapy and Jim Seddon who gave me courage to attempt to speak out of loneliness at the Analytical Group of the Society of Analytical Psychology.

The quotations from the autobiography of Bertrand Russell are reproduced by kind permission of George Allen & Unwin Ltd.