Controversial Discussions: Independent Women Analysts and Thoughts About Listening to Experience

The aim of this paper is to identify central ideas described by E lla F reeman S harpe, M arjorie B rierley and S ylvia P ayne during the C ontroversial D iscussions 1941–45 as presented in their M emoranda on T echnique. These women, who have been described as the architects of the M iddle G roup (later renamed T he G roup of I ndependent P sychoanalysts) offer recommendations from their own clinical experience as psychoanalysts. I bring illustrations of their particular approaches relating to patients' history and experience. Each of these women took issue in certain ways with the concepts and assertions brought by M elanie K lein and A nna F reud and in articulating their reservations became positioned somewhat ‘independently’, bringing different emphases both conceptually and clinically. In the second part of the paper I ask how their ideas and recommendations may have influenced later psychoanalysts within the I ndependent T radition such as M arion M ilner, E nid B alint, P earl K ing and A nn H ayman. My focus concerns the development of a theory of clinical technique that privileges what I term ‘listening to experience’. I highlight the contributions made by M ichael P arsons whose writing has been central in giving voice to contemporary theorizing on the clinical technique of the I ndependent T radition.