ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the key lines of development in independent thinking. It suggests that the most illuminating and unifying of the threads in the Independent tradition, which can seem diffuse, is afforded by S. Ferenczi's and D. W. Winnicott's responses to S. Freud's "Formulations on the principles of mental functioning". This sketch of the infant's need to shift from the "pleasure principle" to the "reality principle" rapidly prompted Ferenczi to describe in detail how this shift might be achieved. In suggesting a central unifying thread in the Independent tradition, it is important to recognise that it is intertwined with a number of interrelated themes in the evolution of psychoanalysis over the past hundred years and the chapter discusses these themes. The chapter further sets out the organisational political context in which the group's theoretical thinking developed, because philosophical and organisational issues were as important as the theoretical stances which were taken up by most members of the group.
