Slouching Towards Bethlehem: ...and Further Psychoanalytic Explorations

About Nina Coltart

Nina Coltart was 'one of the most admired and liked psychoanalysts in Britain. For 35 years she was an active member of the British and international psychoanalytic community and she played a major role in extending the influence of analytic ideas outside that world.' (A. H. Brafman 'Obituary: Nina Coltart' Independent 18 August 1997) She was born in London in 1927 and passed away in Leighton Buzzard Bedfordshire in 1997. She read Modern Languages at Somerville College Oxford but went on to train as a doctor qualifying in 1957 at St Bartholomews Hospital. After qualification she worked as a psychiatrist but found more interest in her patients emotions and experiences than medical conditions. Thus in 1961 she set up in private practice as a psychotherapist concurrently training as a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society. She qualified in 1964 as an associate member became a full member in 1969 and a training analyst in the Independent Group in 1971. A dynamic representative of the international psychoanalytic community teaching and lecturing and also helping to administer various psychotherapy trainings Dr Coltart went beyond the usual confines to bring analytic ideas to the wider world. She taught extensively for the British Society on a series of courses especially those concerned with questions of assessment and analysability. She built up an extensive consultation and referral service concentrating on diagnosis and assessment for analytical therapy and for psychoanalysis. From 1972 to 1982 she was Director of the London Clinic which interviews and assesses potential training cases for students of the British Society. She was Vice-President of the British Society and Chairman of its Board and Council from 1984 to 1987. She retired in 1994. Dr Coltart published numerous papers in psychotherapy journals and three books: Slouching Towards Bethlehem And Further Psychoanalytic Explorations (1992) How to Survive as a Psychotherapist (1993) and The Baby and the Bathwater (1996) which are all reissued by Phoenix.