Introduction to the Work of H. J. S. Guntrip

In this chapter, the work of H. J. S. Guntrip is described and contextualized. Henry James Samuel Guntrip (May 29, 1901–1975) was a British psychoanalytic psychologist known for his significant contributions to object relations theory and general psychoanalytic thought. Before his psychoanalytic career, Dr. Guntrip trained as a Congregational minister and integrated psychoanalytic thought into spiritual practice from which various volumes were written, most notably, Psychology for Ministers and Social Workers (1949), You and Your Nerves (1951; republished in 1970 as Your Mind and your Health), Mental Pain and the Cure of Soul (1956), and Facing Life and Death (commemorating the theologian L. J. Tizard, 1959). His psychoanalytic works include Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations, and the Self (1968), as well as Personality Structure and Human Interaction (1961) and Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and the Self (1971). Dr. Guntrip’s most senior analysand, Dr. Jeremy Hazell, also published two outstanding volumes, further contributing to Guntrip’s legacy. They include Personal Relations Therapy: The Collected Papers of H.J.S. Guntrip , published in 1994, and H.J.S. Guntrip: A Psychoanalytic Biography , published in 1996. Dr. Trevor Dobbs’ most recently published work, Faith, Theology, and Psychoanalysis: The Life and Thought of Harry S. Guntrip , was published in 2007 . Although not as well-known as Ronald Fairbairn and D. W. Winnicott (both his analysts), Dr. Guntrip can rightly be described, as so written by Dr. Jock Sutherland, as one of the psychoanalytic immortals (1980).