Person
Susan Isaacs
British educational psychologist and psychoanalyst. As the first principal of the experimental Malting House School in Cambridge she recorded how young children think and get along with one another, and from 1933 she headed the new Department of Child Development at the Institute of Education in London. In the Controversial Discussions of the British Psycho-Analytical Society she was Melanie Klein's sharpest advocate: her paper 'The Nature and Function of Phantasy' (read in 1943, published in 1948) defined unconscious phantasy as the mental expression of the drives, at work from the beginning of life.
- Born
- 1885
- Died
- 1948
- Known for
- Influenced by
developed
- Unconscious phantasy 1943 In 'The Nature and Function of Phantasy', read in 1943 at the opening of the Controversial Discussions and published in 1948, Isaacs widened Freud's notion of unconscious phantasy: phantasy is the mental expression of every drive, is active from the beginning of life, and is the primary content of all unconscious mental processes.
- Transference 1943 Isaacs treats the transference as made almost wholly of unconscious phantasy, so that its changes in the session let the analyst read the patient's phantasies.
- Introjection 1943 Isaacs distinguishes the abstract mechanism of introjection from the phantasy of incorporating an object, and treats the phantasy as the way the mechanism is lived by the subject.
analysed by
- Otto Rank A short analysis of about three months in the early 1920s. The sources disagree on the details: the Melanie Klein Trust says she went to Vienna hoping to be analysed by Freud and settled for Rank after a brief treatment with Flügel in 1920, while Psychoanalytikerinnen places the analysis in Berlin and before Flügel.
- J. C. Flügel The Melanie Klein Trust dates a brief treatment with Flügel to 1920, before her analysis with Rank; Psychoanalytikerinnen has her continue with Flügel after Rank.
- Joan Riviere A more formal personal analysis in London, which Isaacs undertook after joining Klein's circle. The sources give different start dates: 1922 in Psychoanalytikerinnen, 1927 in other accounts. She dedicated Social Development in Young Children (1933) to Riviere.
collaborated with
- Melanie Klein Isaacs worked with Klein on the Kleinian case in the Controversial Discussions and on the joint book Developments in Psycho-Analysis, published in 1952 after her death.
- Paula Heimann Isaacs and Heimann wrote the chapter 'Regression' together for Developments in Psycho-Analysis (1952), the joint book of the Kleinian group.
- Joan Riviere Besides being her analyst, Riviere was Isaacs's co-author in Developments in Psycho-Analysis (1952), which Riviere edited.