Nina Coltart (21 November 1927 – 24 June 1997), a British

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...

psychotherapist Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome pro ...

, and essayist, was born in Shortlands,

Kent, England Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces the ...

. Her father was a medical doctor and her mother, a housewife. In 1940 she and her younger sister Gill were evacuated to

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, where they lived with their maternal grandmother and a nanny who, years before, had cared for Coltart’s mother. Coltart’s parents died in a

train wreck A train wreck, train collision, train accident or train crash is a type of disaster involving one or more trains. Train wrecks often occur as a result of miscommunication, as when a moving train meets another train on the same track; or an acci ...

under blackout conditions that year on their way to visit their daughters. Coltart attended

Sherborne School for Girls Sherborne Girls, formally known as Sherborne School for Girls, is an independent day and boarding school for girls, located in Sherborne, North Dorset, England. There were 485 pupils attending in 2019–2020, with over 90 per cent of them livin ...

and from there went to

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, where she read English and

Modern Languages A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication (such as French and German) and dead classical languages such ...

. She applied to St. Bartholomew's Hospital's Medical College, where she was the first female editor of the Barts Journal. She earned a medical degree there and began work as a psychiatrist. Soon after Coltart began training in psychoanalysis. In her

training analysis A training analysis is a psychoanalysis undergone by a candidate (perhaps a physician with specialty in psychiatry or a psychologist) as a part of her/his training to be a psychoanalyst; the (senior) psychoanalyst who performs such an analysis is ...

she was analyzed by

Eva Rosenfeld Eva Marie Rosenfeld (5 January 1892 – 17 August 1977) was a Jewish- German-British psychoanalyst, an analysand of Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein. Although born in New York City, Eva Rosenfeld spent her youth in Berlin where her father Theodor ...

. Coltart began her private practice in London in 1961. In 1964 Coltart qualified as an Associate Member of the

British Psychoanalytical Society The British Psychoanalytical Society was founded by the British neurologist Ernest Jones as the London Psychoanalytical Society on 30 October 1913. It is one of two organizations in Britain training psychoanalysts, the other being the British P ...

. She became a Full Member in 1969, and a training analyst in 1971.A.H. Brafman,
Nina Coltart.
''The London Independent'', Aug. 18, 1997. Much later she would write, “Ever since childhood, I could think of nothing that gave me more intense enjoyment than listening to people telling me their stories.Nina Coltart, ''The Baby and the Bathwater'', H. Karnac (Books) Ltd. London: 1996 To that end she consulted with patients for referral, assessing more than 3,000 patients in her career. Coltart was known as an enthusiastic, warm, and encouraging mentor.

Christopher Bollas Christopher Bollas (born 1943) is a British psychoanalyst and writer. He is a leading figure in contemporary psychoanalytic theory. Early life and education Bollas was born in the United States in Washington, DC. He grew up in Laguna Beach, Ca ...

called her "one of the great training analysts." She took on especially difficult patients and wrote "in language devoid of jargon, dogma, or pretentiousness" about her cases. She used concepts and thinkers from philosophy and literature to illuminate her writing and thought. Love, religion, grief, the psychoanalytic relationship, morality, culture, the silent patient, and the body—including that of the therapist, who sits all day — are some of the many areas she explored. She lectured widely, traveling to the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and Israel. Coltart was a

neo-Freudian Neo-Freudianism is a Psychoanalytic theory, psychoanalytic approach derived from the influence of Sigmund Freud but extending his theories towards typically social or cultural aspects of psychoanalysis over the biological. The neo-Freudian School ...

and a

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

and theorized that there are distinct similarities in the transformation of the self that occurs in both

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

and

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

.Paul Williams,“Nina, Anatta, and No-Self," British Journal of Psychotherapy, Volume 14, Number 4, (Summer 1998), pp. 527-530 Coltart was Director of the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis for ten years and Vice President of the

. She retired in 1994 to her house in the country in Leighton Buzzard,

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

. Due to long hours of sitting for her work, plus years of heavy smoking, she developed a collapsed vertebra, giving her constant, severe pain. Her pain killers then caused a perforated stomach ulcer, seriously worsening her condition. As a Buddhist she was completely calm about her own death and she chose to end her life through voluntary, self-induced euthanasia on 24 June 1997.

References

External links

Coltart, Nina. 1992. ''Slouching Towards Bethlehem'', The Guilford Press, New York

Coltart, Nina. 1993. ''How to Survive as a Psychotherapist'', Sheldon Press, London

Coltart, Nina. 1996. ''The Baby and the Bathwater'', H. Karnac (Books) Ltd. London

Freud Museum The Freud Museum in London is a museum dedicated to Sigmund Freud, located in the house where Freud lived with his family during the last year of his life. In 1938, after escaping Nazi annexation of Austria he came to London via Paris and st ...

Conference on the Therapist’s Body, 21 May 2000, {{DEFAULTSORT:Coltart, Nina 1927 births Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford 1997 deaths English essayists British psychoanalysts British psychotherapists People from Bromley People educated at Sherborne Girls 20th-century essayists People from Leighton Buzzard