Harry Guntrip

Part of a series of articles on Psychoanalysis

Concepts Psychosexual development Psychosocial development Conscious • Preconscious • Unconscious Psychic apparatus Id, ego, and super-ego Libido • Drive Transference Countertransference Ego defenses • Resistance Projection • Denial Important figures Alfred Adler • Michael Balint Wilfred Bion • Nancy Chodorow Erik Erikson • Ronald Fairbairn Sándor Ferenczi Anna Freud • Sigmund Freud Erich Fromm • Harry Guntrip Karen Horney Ernest Jones • Carl Jung Melanie Klein • Heinz Kohut Jacques Lacan Margaret Mahler • Otto Rank Wilhelm Reich Harry Stack Sullivan Susan Sutherland Isaacs Donald Winnicott Important works The Interpretation of Dreams Beyond the Pleasure Principle Civilization and Its Discontents Schools of thought Self psychology • Lacanian • Object relations Interpersonal • Relational Ego psychology

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Harry Guntrip (1901-1975) was a psychologist known for his major contributions to object relations theory. He was a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a psychotherapist and lecturer at the Department of Psychiatry, Leeds University, and also a Methodist minister. He was described by John D. Sutherland as "one of the psychoanalytic immortals".

Work

In Guntrip’s writing, the work of Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, and D. W. Winnicott are synthesized. But he also advanced his own ideas in which he criticized Freud for being too oriented toward biology and therefore dehumanizing. He argued that the regressed ego exerts a powerful effect on life and understood the schizoid sense of emptiness as reflecting the withdrawal of energy from the real world into a world of internal object relations.

He worked extensively with schizoid patients who were detached, withdrawn, and unable to form real human relations. He came to regard the self as the fundamental psychological concept, psychoanalysis as the study of its growth, and psychoanalytic therapy as a means of providing a personal relationship in which the alienated, withdrawn self is given an opportunity for healthy growth and development, and finally putting it in touch with other persons and objects.

Published works

• Schizoid Phenomena, Object-Relations, and the Self (1992). Karnac Books.ISBN 1-85575-032-5
• Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and the Self: A Basic Guide to the Human Personality in Freud, Erikson, Klein, Sullivan, Fairbairn, Hartmann, Jacobson, and Winnicott (1985). Karnac Books.ISBN 0-946439-15-X
• Personality Structure and Human Interaction (1995). Karnac Books.ISBN 1-85575-118-6
• Psychology for Ministers and Social Workers (1949)
• You and Your Nerves
• Mental Pain and the Cure of Souls
• Middle Age (with L. J. Tizard)

Further reading

Hazell, J (1986) H.J.S.Guntrip: A Psychoanalytical Biography.Free Association Books .ISBN 1-85343-333-0

See also

• Object relations theory

External links

• Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and the Self - online text
• The Guntrip Trust at The Scottish Institute of Human Relations

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