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The heart of this book is the detailed account, not only of Guntrip’s vivid dream sequences over a period of forty years, but also of this two analyses, the first with W.R.D. Fairbairn, and the second with D.W. Winnicott. Never in the history of psychoanalysis has an extremely psychologically-minded practicing therapist, who eventually contributed important new developments of his own to psychoanalysis, recorded every session of his analysis, and then embarked, with a remarkable mixture of ego-strength and selflessness, on preparing them for publication. His death, of cancer, came untimely when he was psychically still at the height of his powers. We are fortunate that the task was fulfilled by a therapist, Jeremy Hazell, whom Guntrip trained, and later knew well as a colleague and friend.
No analyst or therapist, from the newest student to the eminence grises, can fail to be absorbed by the detailed session-by-session story of two of the great figures of psychoanalysis at work in their consulting rooms. We see the theories, techniques, and more importantly, the personality of these two Object-Relations pioneers evolving before us as we read. I was aware of a sense of privilege at being admitted to a unique event, the unfolding of the psychological history of a rare and engaging man.
This book gives us the broad sweep of a remarkable psychoanalytic writer, Harry Guntrip, whose place is at the forefront of our efforts to explain the role of an emergent and resilient self in the organization and maintenance of human relations. Harry Guntrip brought a unique intensity to the examination of personal experience in constructing and validating psychoanalytic meaning. His heritage draws directly on the tradition of Freud.
In this volume, Jeremy Hazell has done far more than simply collect the records. He has done so through his own lens, through a depth of understanding and valuing that shine through. His introduction is a record of the interweaving of Guntrip’s personal growth with his psychoanalytic understanding. It is a Baedeker of Guntrip’s travels, a rich appreciation, a tribute, and a fine work in its own right.
Guntrip’s work is important to us, perhaps now more than ever. The issues with which he grappled have come to haunt us in a time of ever more consciousness of the toll of social and personal deprivation, and of a growing awareness that our work is not concerned with egos—with the mechanisms of an autonomous mind— as much as it is with selves in relation to others. Taking from his teachers and colleagues, from Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Sutherland, Guntrip worked tirelessly to teach that it is in the depth of personal relations that we find ourselves, and that dedication to this process offers us what we have to give to our patients.
