Introduction

In this chapter the author shares his experiences and his struggles in psychoanalysis. He did his analytic training within the bosom of the Independent Group of the British Psychoanalytical Society. The author had already been attracted to this outlook and in London he had attended for six years the fortnightly seminars run by Herbert Rosenfeld. When he had been in Australia for six years he sent a paper to the Bulletin of the British Psychoanalytic Society in which he was particularly attacking the erection of icons within psychoanalytic societies. In 1995, the Tavistock had a conference to celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary and they asked him to come and present a paper at it, which he was pleased to do. The author was asked to give a talk to a newly established psychotherapy association in Oakland, so he spoke about his own struggle to achieve independence of mind within the British Psychoanalytic Society.