Hidden Histories of British Psychoanalysis

Professor Brett Kahr has worked in the mental health profession for over forty years. He is Senior Fellow at the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology in London and, also, Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Psychotherapy and Mental Health at the Centre for Child Mental Health. He holds posts as Consultant to The Bowlby Centre and, also, as Consultant Psychotherapist to The Balint Consultancy. Having worked for many years in the National Health Service, he currently maintains a private practice in Hampstead, North London, for individuals and couples.Professor Kahr is a Trustee of the Freud Museum London and of Freud Museum Publications, and he is also a trained historian with a special concentration in the history of psychoanalysis. Author or editor of eleven books, his titles include, D.W. Winnicott: A Biographical Portrait, which received the Gradiva Award for Biography; Sex and the Psyche, which became a chosen title in the Sunday Times Book Club and which appeared in serial form in both The Times and The Observer; Tea with Winnicott, selected as one of the “Books of the Year” in The Guardian newspaper; Coffee with Freud; and, most recently, New Horizons in Forensic Psychotherapy: Exploring the Work of Estela V. Welldon, an edited Festschrift in honour of Dr Welldon’s eightieth birthday. He has served as series editor for over fifty-five further titles in his capacity as Series Editor of the “Forensic Psychotherapy Monograph Series” and, also, as Series Co-Editor for both the “History of Psychoanalysis Series” and the “Library of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis”, all published by Routledge.

• Introduction:My Love of Deceased Psychoanalysts PART I: SIGMUND FREUD AS AN ENGLISHMANChapter 1:“Zooming” in Old Vienna: How Sigmund Freud Became an English-Speaking PsychoanalystChapter 2:Freud’s London Death Bed: Notes on the “Invalid Couch” at Maresfield Gardens PART II: UNPUBLISHED WINNICOTTIANA.Chapter 3:Donald Winnicott’s Wives: From Alice Buxton Taylor to Clare BrittonChapter 4:“The Piggle” Family Papers: Unpublished Archival Gems Regarding Winnicott’s Most Iconic Case PART III: DR. AND MRS. BOWLBY.Chapter 5:“Half-Baked Pseudo-Scientific Rubbish”: How John Bowlby Reinvented Child PsychiatryChapter 6:Ursula Longstaff Bowlby: The Creative Muse of Attachment Theory PART IV: TWO TRULY UNASSUMING ICONS.Chapter 7:Breakfast with Marion Milner: Reminiscences of the World’s Oldest Psychoanalyst Chapter 8:Enid Eichholz Balint: The Birth of Couple Psychoanalysis in England PART V: THE BAD BOYS OF BRITISH PSYCHOANALYSIS.Chapter 9:Rajah on the Couch: The Magnificence and Misery of Masud KhanChapter 10:R.D. Laing’s Missing Tooth: The Secret Roots of Genius and Madness Conclusion:How to Be Intimate with a Corpse: The Role of Psychoanalytical HistoriographyAcknowledgementsReferencesIndex

‘Few books are simultaneously informative, deep, playful, and pleasurable to read. Combining humility and respect for his subjects with creative audacity and understated eloquence, Brett Kahr’s Hidden Histories of British Psychoanalysis is a rare book of such sort. The two words in the title that give away the author’s passion and craft are “Hidden” (with its impish promise to unveil secrets) and “Histories” (with its sombre acknowledgment of the myriad, divergent sources, choices, and agendas in writing history). Based upon laborious archival research and personal interviews with the London glitterati of psychoanalysis (e.g. John Bowlby, Marion Milner, Enid Balint, Pearl King, R. D. Laing), Kahr offers us a penetrating glimpse into the post-Freudian developments in British psychoanalysis, while introducing us to the strengths and solidities of his dramatis personae as well as to their whims, idiosyncrasies, and occasional madnesses. This is a great contribution to our professional literature indeed!’