ABSTRACT
The Independents have carried forward that mental attitude which prevailed before the tri-partition of the British Psychoanalytical Society. As a consequence, during the years just before the Second World War, the British Psychoanalytical Society was characterised by a convergence of middle-European cultures upon its ranks, a situation forced upon the organisation by the realities of war. Ernest Jones, the president of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), in close collaboration with Anna Freud, endeavoured his utmost to find solutions which would allow as many analysts as possible to leave Germany and move to England, the US, or other countries. Albeit with each member having his/her own original approach, the Independents have always shared, and still do to this day, the belief in the importance attributed to environmental factors, to external reality, in the psychic-physical development of the human being, without adopting a rigidly environmentalist position.
