Enabling and Inspiring

Martha Harris (1919-1987) was one of the most influential psychoanalysts of the generation that trained with Melanie Klein. This tribute by those who studied with her is testimony to a remarkable teacher and clinician, and inspiration to others who may struggle to use psychoanalytic ideas imaginatively in what can appear to be an unr

Martha Harris (1919-1987) was one of the most influential and also one of the most loved psychoanalysts of the generation that trained with Melanie Klein. She also worked with Wilfred Bion, and wrote many books and papers on psychoanalytic training and child development. Her colleague James Gammill cites Mrs Klein as saying: She is one of the best people I have ever known for the psychoanalysis of children … and she has a mind of her own. Harris was responsible for the child psychotherapy training at the Tavistock Clinic from 1960 onwards, developing laterally the method founded on infant observation that had been put in place by Esther Bick. She established cross-clinic work discussion groups, a pioneering schools’ counselling course (in collaboration with her husband Roland Harris), and individual work with disturbed children in the school environment. Her belief that psychoanalytic ideas could and should travel, both geographically and across the professions, led to her seeding the Tavi Model in many other countries through regular teaching trips, in company with her later husband Donald Meltzer. Her influence was not as a theorist, but as a teacher with an extraordinary capacity to engage processes of introjective learning in both students and readers. This tribute by some of those who studied with her is not simply testimony to a remarkable teacher and clinician whose wisdom has been rarely equalled; it also offers inspiration to others who may be struggling to find ways of using psychoanalytic ideas imaginatively in a variety of contexts – clinical, social or scholarly – in what can at times appear to be an unreceptive world.

Preface Meg Harris Williams PART I - IN ENGLAND AND ABROAD 1. Mattie at work Gianna Polacco Williams 2. Mattie as an educator Margaret Rustin 3. Mattie's teaching methods Ann Cebon 4. Mattie's contribution to the study of infant observation Janine Sternberg 5. A psychoanalytic revolution from a speculative to an empirical point of view Didier Houzel 6. The role of Martha Harris from the beginning of the GERPEN James Gammill 7. Martha Harris: an indelible creative memory Carlo Brutti and Rita Parlani Brutti 8. Made in Hampstead and exported throughout the world: Germany and Austria Ross A. Lazar 9. Mattie in Bombay Sarosh Forbes 10. Turning points enabled by Martha Harris Marja Schulman 11. Growing points and the role of observation Meg Harris Williams PART II - CLINICAL WORK AND SUPERVISION 12. The experience of supervision Catrin Bradley 13. Mattie as "maternal container" for a trainee Evanthe Blandy 14. A glimpse of prenatal life Romana Negri 15. Assessment of a little girl and her parents Simona Nissim 16. Supervision of a five year old boy Andrea Watson 17. Revisiting some lessons learned from Martha Harris Dina Vallino 18. Reminiscences of an infant observation with Martha Harris Angela Goyena 19. Family consultations in the footsteps of Martha Harris with toddlers at risk of autism Maria Rhode PART III - PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 20. Shorter recollections Gabrielle Crockatt, Helene Dubinsky, Ellen Jaffe, Judy Shuttleworth, Brian Truckle, Eleanor Wigglesworth, Ricky Emanuel, Katherine Arnold, Herbert Chaim Hahn, Carlo Papuzza, Maria Pozzi, Renata Li Causi, Torhild Leira, Eve Steel 21. Memories of Mattie Valerie Sinason 22. Mattie's legacy Asha Phillips 23. Mattie on maternal containment Anne Alvarez 24. Baptism under fire: finding my feet as a child psychotherapist Caroline Gluckman 25. On becoming a psychotherapist Margot Waddell 26. Remembering Mattie Alessandra Piontelli 27. Personal recollections of learning from Mattie Harris Pamela Sorensen 28. Mattie's house: a memoir Selina Sella Marsoni 29. A tribute to Mattie Patricia Kenwood Postscript: among schoolchildren Meg Harris Williams Appendix: Portrait of Mattie Donald Meltzer References Name index Subject index,

• By (author) Meg Harris Williams
• By (author) Maria Rhode
• By (author) Margaret Rustin
• By (author) Gianna Williams