ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis has never yet been very popular in Britain, even among the intelligentsia and in the universities. However, coming from a small group of people – there have been only a few hundred British psychoanalysts – a wealth of ideas has affected psychoanalytic thinking throughout the world. The Independents have developed psychoanalytic ideas in specific ways side by side with acceptance of basic Freudian teaching. They use concepts developed by Klein and her school as well as those of Anna Freud. The key to an understanding of the Independents is their avowed openness to learning from any psychoanalytic theories. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book aims to be descriptive, to portray the work of some British psychoanalysts during the past seventy years.
