‘…if this is her final book, she has left the best for last. Psychoanalysts trained within the Independent Group are often asked by psychoanalysts and psychotherapists abroad which book they should read to get a feel for the way independent psychoanalysts think and work. In the past one has referred to Winnicott’s Playing and Reality, Rycroft’s Imagination and Reality, Khan’s The Privacy of the Self, and Marion Milner’s opus. But if we are to have one book, this is it. We may say “Here, you will find it here”. This work is a literary spirit of place – a beautifully rendered conjuring of sensibility – and to my mind it is the single best expression of the English psychoanalyst of independent persuasion we are ever likely to have.’ From the Foreword by Christopher Bollas
Whether you’re looking for answers, would like to solve a problem, or just want to let us know how we did, we are always happy to hear from you.
Nina Coltart was “one of the most admired and liked psychoanalysts in Britain. For 35 years she was an active member of the British and international psychoanalytic community and she played a major role in extending the influence of analytic ideas outside that world.” (A. H. Brafman, “Obituary: Nina Coltart”, Independent, 18 August 1997)
David E. Scharff, M.D –
Nina Coltart’s The Baby and the Bathwater is a clear water flowing gently over rocks. Her observations of a career in psychoanalysis span more than thirty years of writing, showing us how the ends of her professional development were contained in the beginnings, and showing us how this was so in detail through her wonderful prose. From the specifics of clinical histories and experiences through her long and interesting career to the chapters on spirituality and philosophy – both personal and clinical examinations of philosophy – she demonstrates the powers of a penetrating mind. Trained at Oxford, Coltart has moved both within and beyond the constraints of several traditions – medicine, psychoanalysis, Christianity, Buddhism – to give us the rarest of gifts – an independent mind. This is a book for the novice because it will give them inspiration and courage to begin, and a book for the war-weary veteran psychotherapist and psychoanalyst because it is rejuvenating. If you want a fresh wind in your therapeutic sails, read this book!
Amazon review: Mrs Angela M King, August 2001 –
5/5 stars: A delightful read full of colourful clinical examples
I really enjoyed this book partly because of the no nonsense way in which it is written and put together, but also because it brings all aspects of what goes on in a therapeutic relationship into focus in a very readable way. This is not a book that tries to teach basic concepts but it is one that gives an insight to the human element in psychoananlytic work.
Amazon review: Eileen G, April 2000 –
5/5 stars: Recent essays from a remarkable career
Nina Coltart was a remarkable independent and able training analyst, teacher, and respected administrator at the (British) Institute of Psycho-Analysis for more that twenty years. She has written that since childhood, the thing she loved most was “listening to people telling me their stories.” Her intense and fruitful intellectual engagement with her work was well known, and was matched by her commitment to her patients – their hearts and minds as well as their “stories.” She specialized in, but was not limited to, consultations for diagnosis and assessment, and was renowned for her skill and sensitivity in referring more than 3,000 patients to especially suitable practitioners. In addition, she had read Modern Languages at Oxford at a young student – medicine came later – and so is a writer for whom the whole world is (sometimes) just barely big enough. All but one of these clear, well-organized essays were written in the past several years. In them she details her various philosophies and opinions, and offers compassionate, insightful, and sometimes thrilling stories from her clinical practice. (She successfully treated one patient with ulcerative colitis with psychotherapy.) She includes – and lovingly explains – many of her personal, relevant, and very interesting opinions. She illuminates her interest and commitment to Buddhism, and its helpfulness to her professional work, in “Buddhism and Psychoanalysis Revisited.” In “Endings,” her topics are death, the difference between worry and concern, termination of the analytic relationship – and much more. She notes, not insincerely, that one of the worst things about her own death will be her inability to write about it afterwards.
This is a fine collection which anyone with an interest in psychoanalysis will find valuable and pleasurable.