The Concept of the Internal Object: Some Defining Features

Anne Alvarez, Ph.D., M.A.C.P., is a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist (and retired Co-Convener of the Autism Service, Child and Family Department, Tavistock Clinic, London, where she still teaches.). She is author of Live Company: Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Autistic, Borderline, Deprived, and Abused Children and edited with Susan Reid Autism and Personality: Findings from the Tavistock Autism Workshop. A book in her honor, edited by Judith Edwards, entitled Being Alive: Building on the Work of Anne Alvarez, was published in 2002. She was Visiting Professor at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Society in November 2005 and is an Honorary Member of the Psychoanalytic Centre of California. Her latest book, The Thinking Heart: Three Levels of Psychoanalytic Therapy with Disturbed Children, was published in April 2012 by Routledge.
Correspondence should be addressed to Anne Alvarez, Ph.D., M.A.C.P., Flat 9, Heath Mansions, The Mount, London NW3 6SN, UK. E-mail: