Nina Searl

Mary Nina Searl (13 October 1883^[1] – 26 February 1955)^[2] was an English psychologist and one of the earliest British child psychoanalysts, who came by way of the Brunswick Square Clinic to become a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society.^[3] She was analysed by Hanns Sachs.^[4]

Among her supervisees was John Bowlby while she also helped train D. W. Winnicott and Susan Isaacs.

Early life and education

Searl was born in Forest Gate, Chippenham, Wiltshire.^[5] She was educated at Sidcup High School before entering the University of London in 1901.^[6]

Theoretic contributions

During the twenties and thirties, Searl published a number of theoretical contributions, on subjects ranging from childhood stammering to depersonalization.^[7] She explored childhood phantasies of bodily destruction,^[8] as well as the repeated flight to reality where the individual seeks reassurance again and again that underlying fears are indeed imaginary, without ever reaching full reassurance.^[9]

Perhaps her most significant contribution was however her article on technique of 1936, which has been described as a neglected classic, anticipating much later work on ego resistance in analysis.^[10] While previously Searl had been closely associated with the movement around Melanie Klein, the article aroused considerable hostility from Kleinians, in a way anticipating the later Controversial discussions^[11] - hostility which ultimately resulted in Searl leaving the psychoanalytic movement.^[12]

Searl's downplaying of the role of theory in the article - "The function of theory is to help the analyst's weakness on extra-analytical occasion and is of use to the patient only in this indirect fashion"^[13] - may have contributed to this hostility; though again it can be seen as anticipating later positions such as those held by Joseph J. Sandler.

Publications

• 'A Case of Stammering in a Child' International Journal of Psychoanalysis, VIII, 1927
• 'The Flight to Reality' IJP, X, 1929
• 'Danger Situations of the Immature Ego' IJP, X, 1929
• 'A Note on Depersonalization' IJP, XIII, 1932
• 'The Psychology of Screaming' IJP, XIV, 1933
• 'Freudian Light on Children's Behaviour' The New Era, XVII 1936
• 'Some Queries on Principles of Technique', IJP, XVII 1936