In other words, creativity in psychoanalysis requires boundaries as well as freedom. Of particular interest are the experiences and characteristics that define the group as a group. Why these elements were so potent a mix is explained by reference to Winnicott's ideas on creative play, transitional objects, and the holding environment, and to the writings of Ludwig Fleck, an historian of science, on scientific groups. Other analytic groups that might be studied include the members of the Kinder seminar in Vienna in the late 1920s and the 1930s, and the analysts who collaborated with Melanie Klein in the late 1930s and the 1940s. The question of the relationship, if any, between these developments is certainly an important one to explore.
References are available from the author upon request .
Nellie L. Thompson, an historian, is a senior candidate at The York Psychoanalytic Institute, where she is curator of the Brill Library's Archives and Special Collections.