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The Tavistock Model: Collected Papers of Martha Harris and Esther Bick

Authors: Martha Harris and Esther Bick

£25.19 – £37.00

This is a revised and expanded edition of the papers of Martha Harris and Esther Bick on child development, infant observation and psychoanalytic training, that form the basis for what has become known worldwide as the ‘Tavistock Model’ of educating child psychotherapists.

Authors

Martha Harris and Esther Bick
ISBN

9781912567362
Format

Paperback, e-Book, Print & e-Book
Page Extent

496
Publication Date

September 2018
Subject Areas

Bionian Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalysis, Child & Adolescent
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Description

This is a revised and expanded edition of the collected papers of Martha Harris and Esther Bick on child development, infant observation and psychoanalytic training, including some not in previous editions. These papers from their clinical, observational and educational  perspectives, form the basis for what has become known worldwide as the ‘Tavistock Model’ of educating child psychotherapists: a model which also enriches psychoanalysis with adults. The collection includes appendices by Ann Cebon and Margaret Rustin and on the genesis of the Schools’ Counsellors’ Course developed at the Tavistock by Roland and Martha Harris.

Contents

Contents

Foreword
Meg Harris Williams

I PSYCHOANALYTIC TRAINING

1. The Tavistock training and philosophy (1977)
Martha Harris

2. The individual in the group: on learning to work with the psychoanalytical method (1978)
Martha Harris

3. Bion’s conception of a psychoanalytical attitude (1980)
Martha Harris

4. The place of once-weekly treatment in the equipment of a psychoanalytically trained child psychotherapist (1971)
Martha Harris

5. Growing points in psychoanalysis inspired by the work of Melanie Klein (1982)
Martha Harris

6. Esther Bick, 1901–1983
Martha Harris

7. Child analysis today (1962)
Esther Bick

8. Notes on infant observation in psychoanalytic training (1964)
Esther Bick

9. The contribution of observation of mother–infant interaction and development to the equipment of a psychoanalyst or psychoanalytic psychotherapist (1976)
Martha Harris

II PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT AND CLINICAL WORK

10. The experience of the skin in early object relations (1968)
Esther Bick

11. Further considerations on the function of the skin in early object relations (1986)
Esther Bick

12. Some notes on maternal containment in “good enough” mothering (1975)
Martha Harris

13. A baby observation: the absent object (1980)
Martha Harris

14. Towards learning from experience in infancy and childhood (1978)
Martha Harris

15. Personality development: latency (1964)
Martha Harris

16. The therapeutic process in the psychoanalytic treatment of the child (c.1968)
Martha Harris

17. The complexity of pain in a six-year-old child following sudden bereavement (1973)
Martha Harris

18. Depression and the depressive position in an adolescent boy (1965)
Martha Harris

19. Discussion of an adolescent girl (1975)
Martha Harris

20. The early basis of adult female sexuality and motherliness (1975)
Martha Harris

21. Infantile elements and adult strivings in adolescent sexuality (1976)
Martha Harris

III FAMILY AND SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT

22. The child psychotherapist and the patient’s family (1968)
Martha Harris

23. The family circle (1967)
Martha Harris

24. Therapeutic consultations (1966)
Martha Harris

25. Teacher, counsellor, therapist: towards a definition of the roles (1972)
Martha Harris

26. Consultation project in a comprehensive school (1968)
Martha Harris

APPENDIX I
Martha Harris and the Tavistock course by Donald Meltzer

APPENDIX II
The genesis of the Tavistock schools’ counselling course by Jack Whitehead

APPENDIX III
Supervision with Esther Bick by Ann Cebon

APPENDIX IV
Esther Bick’s legacy of infant observation at the Tavistock by Margaret Rustin

References
Index

About the Authors

About the Authors

Martha Harris (1919–1987) read English at University College London and then Psychology at Oxford. She taught in a Froebel Teacher Training College and was trained as a Psychologist at Guys Hospital, as a Child Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, where she was for many years responsible for the child psychotherapy training in the department of Children and Families, and as a Psychoanalyst at the British Institute of Psychoanalysis. Together with her first husband Roland Harris (a teacher) she started a pioneering schools counselling service. With her second husband Donald Meltzer she wrote a psychoanalytical model of The Child in the Family in the Community for multidisciplinary use in schools and therapeutic units.

Esther Bick was born in Poland. She found her way to Switzerland during the Second World War, where she did her Ph.D. under Charlotte Buhler before moving to England to train as a psycho-analyst. She worked closely with Melanie Klein and initiated the Child Psychotherapy Training at the Tavistock Clinic which Martha Harris continued to nurture following her retirement.

6 reviews for The Tavistock Model: Collected Papers of Martha Harris and Esther Bick

  1. Shirley Hoxter, former Senior Tutor at the Tavistock Clinic (from the first edition) –

    ‘[Mattie’s] inclusiveness of attention enabled her to be an outstanding therapist, permeated her teaching, and comes across clearly in her writings.’

  2. Joan Symington, child psychiatrist and training analyst, Australian Psychoanalytical Society –

    ‘Mattie was very much inspired by Melanie Klein’s teaching but was aware of the basic assumption groupings that arise, both internally and externally, through idealization of a great figure and which are death to individual thinking. Bion was an especial influence on her, particularly his idea of learning from the experience of tolerating frustration, and eschewing memory and desire in order to focus on the present moment. The majority of her papers link experiences of infant observation with descriptions of analysis of child or adult cases. Each paper describes new aspects of the experience required for the development of an alive character. They are written in the concise, even-handed style of Mattie’s personality and show her intense interest in the details that make each of us unique.’

  3. Gianna Polacco Williams, psychoanalyst, former organising tutor of the Observation course at the Tavistock Clinic –

    ‘A sentence of Bion’s that Martha Harris often paraphrased was that we should not worry so much about our inhibitions as about our proclivity to inhibit others. Her writing shows most vividly how she could enable talent in both her teaching and her clinical work.’

  4. Margaret Rustin, child and adult psychotherapist, former Head of Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic –

    ‘Mattie’s own courage and devotion and happiness in the work underpinned a colossal determination not to be hampered by a weight of bureaucratized organization and the traditionalist assumptions of most psychoanalytic educators … In retrospect, this shift of gear takes one’s breath away.’

  5. Donald Meltzer, psychoanalyst –

    ‘If ever anyone had ‘greatness thrust upon them’, it was the reluctant Mattie at the time when Mrs Bick left the [Tavistock] Clinic and it was up to Mattie to either take over or to let the infant Child Psychotherapy course fade away… The central conviction, later hallowed in Bion’s concept of “learning from experience”, was that the kind of learning which transformed a person into a professional worker had to be rooted in the intimate relations with inspired teachers, living and dead, present and in books.’

  6. Melanie Klein (personal recollection by James Gammill) –

    ‘Martha Harris is one of the most gifted people for child analysis.’

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