1st Edition
The Marion Milner Tradition Lines of Development: Evolution of Theory and Practice over the Decades
The Marion Milner Tradition provides a comprehensive overview of Milner’s eight-volume oeuvre for the first time, and celebrates her pioneering achievements both in psychoanalytic world and in creative and scientific disciplines such as clinical and organisational psychology, philosophy, mindfulness and spirituality, management theory, art therapy, as well as art appreciation/criticism.
This volume considers Marion Blackett Milner through the prism of her innovative engagement with people, art, and human experience, as well as her extraordinary contribution as an original thinker and researcher within the Independent Group of the British Psychoanalytical Society. The co-editors’ exploratory approach to her legacy is as open as the spirit of Milnerean ‘discovery research’ in defining its distinctive features. An assembly of fifty contributors were invited to interrogate the evolution of what is becoming known as the Milner Tradition, demarcating her influence on theory and clinical practice over the many decades of her life and since her death. They draw upon their professional interviews or friendship with Marion Blackett Milner, or intimate experience of her as an analyst, supervisor, or relative. Similarly, participants in global reading groups in Australia, England, Greece, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and South Africa recount personal responses to their own exercise in action research.
The plethora of riches in this book will be of interest to both new and veteran readers of Milner’s opus, as well as students and practitioners from a variety of therapeutic and other disciplines.
Section I: Marion Blackett Milner life and legacy
INTRODUCTION TO SECTION I:
1. 'Joy to be hidden': thoughts from a biographer
Emma Letley
2. Some essential concepts of Marion Blackett Milner: Framing, Concentration, Absentmindedness, Rêverie
Gabriele Cassullo & Alberto Stefana
3. 'The Pliable Medium'
Barbie Antonis & Elizabeth Wolf
4. Winnicott and Milner - recognising the legacy of collegial love
Margaret Boyle Spelman
5. The Use Creativity Can Make of Pain
Michael Eigen
6. Talking with Marion Milner about Donald W. Winnicott and about herself (1981)
James William Anderson
7. 'What a lovely woman: my youthful encounters with Marion Milner (1985-1998)
Brett Kahr
8. Interview with Marion Milner (1990)
Deborah Anna Luepnitz
9. 'Tea' with Marion Milner (1996)
Linda Hopkins
10. My friend, Marion Milner
Adam Phillips
(Conversations with Margaret Boyle Spelman, London 1st May 2019)
Section II: Clinical applications: Milner in the psychoanalytic consulting room
INTRODUCTION TO SECTION II
11. 'Access to darkly hidden powers'—the context to Marion Milner's psychoanalytic training and clinical work
Joan Raphael-Leff
12. 'My Analyst Marion Milner'
Andreas Giannakoulas
(Telephone conversation with Margaret Boyle Spelman July, 23rd 2009, Rome)
Preface to Chapters 13 and 14: Marion Milner behind the couch
Margaret Boyle Spelman
13. 'I was her last Training Case' - analysis with Marion Milner and supervision with Winnicott
Peter Bruggen
(Conversations with Margaret Boyle Spelman: 27th of May 2005; 8th July 2017)
14. 'Marion was uniquely placed to understand'... (analyses with Marion Milner and with Donald Winnicott)
Andrew Malleson
(Conversations with Margaret Boyle Spelman: 6th of June 2005; 3rd January, 2021)
15. Marion Milner: thinking together... (on her supervision with Milner 1977-1978)
Juliet Mitchell
16. 'A meaningful encounter' - my supervision with Marion Milner (1990-1993)
Leon Kleimberg
17. 'Holding and Visceral Attention': bodily concentration of an analyst under COVID-19 lockdown
Maia Kirchkheli
Section III: Milner: art and creativity
INTRODUCTION TO SECTION III
18. 'Milner and the origins of creativity': from symbolism to symbol formation and illusion
Lesley Caldwell
19. 'The Chosen Medium': Milner's art
Hugh Haughton
20. Introduction to Marion Milner's work on creativity and art
Alberto Stefana
21. Remembering Marion Milner (from 1981 to 1998)
Desy Safán-Gerard
22. 'Jugs, Mugs, and Goblets': Comments on Marion Milner's artistic insights
Jennifer Scott
23. 'Scrappy observations'
Aleana Egan
24. 'A Deeper-rooted Kind of Knowing'
Wayne Featherstone
25. 'What sort of Mrs Milner is she?' Thinking the experience mostly in words
Thanassis Hatzopoulos
For Internatonal Winnicott Association Hellenic Group
26. 'A Womb of One's Own': holding hands, mutual muddlement, and the so-slow finding of feet in Marion Milner's creative clinical cradling of 'Susan'
David Smith & Cheryl Bleakley
Section IV: Milner's books and other endeavours
INTRODUCTION TO SECTION IV
27. The Human Problem in Schools: A refined application of psychological ideals
Shane Graham
28. Marion Milner: a many-branched psychologist at work: (The human problem in schools)
Margaret Boyle Spelman
29. 'Diaries over a lifetime': the diary-work of Marion Milner: A Life of One's Own; Experiment in Leisure; Eternity's Sunrise; Bothered by Alligators
Clare Crellin
[Reporting a conversation between Clare Crellin, Veronica O'Doherty, Aleana Eagan, and Margaret Boyle Spelman]
30. 'What Sort of Therapist Are You?' Reflections on The Suppressed Madness of Sane Men
Carolyn Coburn, Wayne Featherstone, Anne Jeffs, Allan Shafer
(Melbourne, Australia Reading Group)
31. 'Letting oneself be breathed'—On Not Being Able to Paint
Joan Raphael-Leff
For Cape Town Reading Group (of IPA Psychoanalysts)
32. 'The insides of solid things' - On Not Being Able to Paint
Penny Busetto
For Cape Town Interdisciplinary Groups
33. Q&A with Marion Milner on The Hands of the Living God
James William Anderson
34. 'The Play of Opposites' - Milner's last book: Bothered by Alligators
Angela Joyce & Tessa Dalley
Section V: About Marion: Recollections and reflections
INTRODUCTION TO SECTION V
35. 'Granny Plasticine' - my grandmother Marion Blackett Milner
Giles Milner
36. 'Words made flesh...' On editing Marion Milner
David Tuckett
37. 'The Visitation'
Bice Benvenuto
38. 'Marion on the Swing'
Michael Brearley
39. 'Marion on the Drums'
Donald Campbell
40. 'Marion Milner, Shakespeare and fashion'
Jennifer Johns
41. 'Getting to know Marion Milner': An unexpected gift from the late Andreas Giannakoulas
Vincenzo Bonaminio
42. 'It Thought Me' - on interviewing Marion Milner
Anne Karpf
Epilogue: Marion Milner: 'A mind becoming more aware of itself'
Joan Raphael-Leff
Biography
Margaret Boyle Spelman, PhD, is a chartered clinical and counselling psychologist, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and organisational psychologist who has been working for more than four decades with the Irish Health Service Executive and in private practice. She is (ex officio) member of The Psychological Society of Ireland, The Irish Council of Psychotherapy, and member of the European Association for Psychotherapy. Margaret has two monographs on the subject of DW Winnicott and co-edited the Winnicott volume in this series.
Joan Raphael-Leff, PhD, is a psychoanalyst (Fellow, British Psychoanalytical Society and longstanding Member of the Group of Independent Psychoanalysts). Previously, she was Professor of Psychoanalysis at UCL and the University of Essex. In 1998, she founded and served as the first International Chair of COWAP, IPA’s Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis. She is the author and editor of fourteen books and 150 single author publications. Now, in her retirement, she heads the UCL/Anna Freud Centre Academic Faculty for Psychoanalytic Research.
"Marion Milner and her work have been written about previously in a piecemeal sort of way. Here she is presented in her totality. Accounts of her clinical and theoretical ideas highlight their originality and continuing importance for psychoanalysis. Her work as an artist is also considered in its own right. Descriptions of the impact of Milner’s writings on those who have studied them give clues to what readers of this book may find there for themselves. Besides all this, personal reminiscences of Milner bring her vividly and delightfully to life. We must be grateful to Margaret Boyle Spelman and Joan Raphael-Leff for a book that is both informative and inspiring." - Michael Parsons, Distinguished Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and member of the French Psychoanalytic Association
