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The Tavistock Model: Collected Papers of Martha Harris and Esther Bick

Author(s) : Martha Harris, Author(s) : Esther Bick, Editor : Meg Harris Williams

Reviews and Endorsements

‘Martha Harris is one of the most gifted people for child analysis.’
Melanie Klein (personal recollection by James Gammill)

‘If ever anyone had ‘greatness thrust upon them’, it was the reluctant Mattie at the time when Mrs Bick left the [Tavistock] Clinic and it was up to Mattie to either take over or to let the infant Child Psychotherapy course fade away… The central conviction, later hallowed in Bion’s concept of “learning from experience”, was that the kind of learning which transformed a person into a professional worker had to be rooted in the intimate relations with inspired teachers, living and dead, present and in books.’
Donald Meltzer, psychoanalyst

‘Mattie’s own courage and devotion and happiness in the work underpinned a colossal determination not to be hampered by a weight of bureaucratized organization and the traditionalist assumptions of most psychoanalytic educators … In retrospect, this shift of gear takes one’s breath away.’
Margaret Rustin, child and adult psychotherapist, former Head of Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic

‘[Mattie’s] inclusiveness of attention enabled her to be an outstanding therapist, permeated her teaching, and comes across clearly in her writings.’
Shirley Hoxter, former Senior Tutor at the Tavistock Clinic (from the first edition)

‘Mattie was very much inspired by Melanie Klein’s teaching but was aware of the basic assumption groupings that arise, both internally and externally, through idealization of a great figure and which are death to individual thinking. Bion was an especial influence on her, particularly his idea of learning from the experience of tolerating frustration, and eschewing memory and desire in order to focus on the present moment. The majority of her papers link experiences of infant observation with descriptions of analysis of child or adult cases. Each paper describes new aspects of the experience required for the development of an alive character. They are written in the concise, even-handed style of Mattie’s personality and show her intense interest in the details that make each of us unique.’
Joan Symington, child psychiatrist and training analyst, Australian Psychoanalytical Society

‘A sentence of Bion’s that Martha Harris often paraphrased was that we should not worry so much about our inhibitions as about our proclivity to inhibit others. Her writing shows most vividly how she could enable talent in both her teaching and her clinical work.’
Gianna Polacco Williams, psychoanalyst, former organising tutor of the Observation course at the Tavistock Clinic