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The Hands of the Living God At once autobiographical and psychoanalytic, The Hands of the Living God, first published in l969, provides a detailed case study of Susan who, during a 20-year long treatment, spontaneously discovers the capacity to do doodle drawings. An important focus of the book is the drawings themselves, over 150 of which are reproduced in the text, and their deep unconscious perception of the battle between sanity and madness. It is these drawings, linked with Milner’s sensitive and lucid record of the therapeutic encounter, that give the book its unique and compelling interest. With a new introduction by Adam Phillips, The Hands of the Living God is essential reading for all those with an interest in the fields of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and, more widely, to those involved in therapy and the arts. Marion Milner (1900–1998) was a distinguished British psychoanalyst, artist, educationalist and autobiographer. Adam Phillips is a psychoanalyst and a writer. Emma Letley is a writer, academic and psychoanalytic psychotherapist, trained with the Arbours Association, and practising in Notting Hill Gate and at King’s College London. She is the biographer of Marion Milner. The Hands of the Living God An Account of a Psycho-analytic Treatment Marion Milner New introduction by Adam Phillips Series Editor: Emma Letley Literary Executors: John Milner and Margaret Walters LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1969 by The Hogarth Press Reprinted 2010 by Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2011 The Estate of Marion Milner by arrangement with John Milner and Margaret Walters c/o Paterson Marsh Ltd Introduction © Adam Phillips All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. This publication has been produced with paper manufactured to strict environmental standards and with pulp derived from sustainable forests. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Milner, Marion Blackett. The hands of the living God : an account of a psycho-analytic treatment / Marion Milner ; edited by Emma Letley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Schizophrenia. 2. Drawing, Psychology of. I. Letley, Emma. II. Title. RC514.M48 2010 616.89'806—dc22 2010025865 ISBN 0-203-83364-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 978–0–415–55069–7 (hbk) ISBN 978–0–415–55070–3 (pbk) To all my teachers in psychoanalysis especially my patients But he would have us remember most of all To be enthusiastic over the night Not only for the sense of wonder It alone has to offer, but also Because it needs our love: for with sad eyes Its delectable creatures look up and beg Us dumbly to ask them to follow; They are exiles who long for the future That lies in our power. They too would rejoice If allowed to serve enlightenment like him, Even to bear our cry of ‘Judas’, As he did and all must bear who serve it. W. H. Auden from ‘In Memory of Sigmund Freud’ (died September 1939) Contents List of illustrations xii Introduction by Adam Phillips xviii Foreword by D. W. Winnicott, F.R.C.P. xxxv Preface xxxvii PART ONE The years before sh