ABSTRACT
Joan introduced the concept of a ‘defensive organisation’. Dr Britton describes this as a complex phantasy system which is clung to as a defence from an imagined psychic catastrophe. This concept has spawned a book by the distinguished contemporary analyst John Steiner and countless other papers. James Strachey’s obituary presents a picture of Joan as uninterested in the world outside her own consulting room. Britton feels this captures the essence of modern psychoanalysis as met with in clinical practice. This is the mother’s capacity to receive and process the baby’s projections of difficult feelings. As well as helping understand psychosis, this theory has had a huge influence on modern psychoanalytic practice. At the end of Britton’s review of Riviere’s collected papers, he identifies one key facet of her personality and attitude: her unflinching statement of unwelcome truth, so boldly stated as to transform pessimism into heroic acceptance recalls Sigmund Freud.
