`In pursuit of the Nazi mind?' the deployment of psychoanalysis in the allied struggle against Germany

This paper discusses how psychoanalytic ideas were brought to bear in the Allied struggle against the Third Reich and explores some of the claims that were made about this endeavour. It shows how a variety of studies of Fascist psychopathology, centred on the concept of superego, were mobilized in military intelligence, post-war planning and policy recommendations for ‘denazification’. Freud's ideas were sometimes championed by particular army doctors and government planners; at other times they were combined with, or displaced by, competing, psychiatric and psychological forms of treatment and diverse studies of the Fascist ‘personality’. This is illustrated through a discussion of the treatment and interpretation of the deputy leader of the Nazi Party, Rudolf Hess, after his arrival in Britain in 1941

Regression and the Maternal in the History of Psychoanalysis, 1900-1957

This paper examines the history of the concept of ‘regression’ as it was perceived by Sandor Ferenczi and some of his followers in the first half of the twentieth century. The first part provides a short history of the notion of ‘regression’ from the late nineteenth century to Ferenczi's work in the 1920s and 1930s. The second and third parts of the paper focus on two other thinkers on regression, who worked in Britain, under the influence of the Ferenczian paradigm – the interwar Scottish psychiatrist, Ian D. Suttie; and the British-Hungarian psychoanalyst, and Ferenczi's most important pupil, Michael Balint. Rather than a descriptive term which comes to designate a pathological mental stage, Ferenczi understood ‘regression’ as a much more literal phenomenon. For him, the mental desire to go backwards in time is a universal one, and a consequence of an inevitable traumatic separation from the mother in early childhood, which has some deep personal and cultural implications. The paper aims to show some close affinities between the preoccupation of some psychoanalysts with ‘regression’, and the growing interest in social and cultural aspects of ‘motherhood’ and ‘the maternal role’ in mid-twentieth-century British society

From the Shell-shocked Soldier to the Nervous Child: Psychoanalysis in the Aftermath of the First World War

This article investigates the development of child analysis in Britain between the wars, as the anxious child succeeded the shell-shocked soldier as a focus of psychoanalytic enquiry. Historians of psychoanalysis tend to regard the Second World War as a key moment in the discovery of the ‘war within’ the child, but it was in the aftermath of the First War that the warring psyche of the child was observed and elaborated. The personal experience of war and its aftermath, and the attention given to regression in the treatment of war neuroses, encouraged Melanie Klein, Anna Freud and others to turn their attention to children. At the same time, however, the impact of the First World War as a traumatic event, with inter-generational consequences, remained largely unaccounted for within psychoanalysis as Klein and others focused on the child's riven internal world

Wilfred Bion's Letters to John Rickman (1939–1951)Introduction

This is a collection of 29 letters, 27 from Wilfred Bion to John Rickman, one addressed to Mrs Rickman and one from Rickman to Bion. These letters have been fully transcribed, annotated and published for the first time and offer a rare glimpse into the blossoming relationship between the two men and the gradual emergence of Bion's intellect through his work in War Office Selection Boards (WOSBs), the Northfield Military hospital and the exploratory groups at the Tavistock Clinic.Through this material it becomes evident that Bion's fascination with the work undertaken at WOSBs had more to do with the social ramifications of the principles and ideology applied there rather than with particular techniques per se, such as ‘leaderless groups’. Furthermore, the reader becomes witness to Rickman's profound influence on Bion's analytic work and in cultivating his interest in therapeutic institutions, ultimately leading to their groundbreaking work at Northfield Military hospital. While Bion's descriptions of his post-war group work at the Tavistock Clinic offer the first signs of his unique theory and technique on the exploration of group dynamics. The continuation of their correspondence until Rickman's untimely death is a testament to their strong collegial and personal relationship which transcended analytical work and other professional engagements. </jats:p