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Anthony Stevens was my first analyst and later a valued teacher. I was introduced to Tony Stevens by Jane Mayers, the mother of a university friend, who herself had been in analysis with him and who was involved with organising Champernowne weekends in Windsor Great Park, where Jung's ideas were explored through art and movement.
Jane gave me the confidence to contact Tony and ask him to be my analyst. He withstood what must have been a suffocating idealizing transference with good humour, and I felt taken seriously. It is only now that I can really recognize that he did indeed see me in my individuality. I experienced him as a kind and caring man who carved his own path independently. He engendered in me an enthusiasm for ethology in my own development as a psychiatrist. I am indebted to have analysed with both Tony and later Salley Vickers, each of whom shared an intense respect for the autonomy of the individual.
I later encountered Tony in Devon when I was completing my pre-training analysis with Julian David. Tony would read passages to a group of students from the latest book he was writing to gauge our reaction to what he had written. He would entertain us royally in the ancient house he lived in. It felt as if there was never enough time to discuss his ideas in the depth I would have liked, perhaps because of a certain personal reticence on his part.
Anthony Stevens was a generous man. Clare Craig, the secretary of The Independent Group of Analytical Psychologists (IGAP), Tony's professional home, remembers how, during a holiday in Corfu, even though they had never met, Tony insisted on taking her and her family out for the day in a boat, including a visit to a restaurant which could only be reached by sea.
Those I have spoken to in IGAP experienced Tony as helpful and obliging. He was happy to fulfil the duties entailed in being a member, including lecturing and examining. I recall Julian David speaking of him as far more mystically inclined than his close asso