Celebrating the life and work of Ron Britton

In Person and Online Event 

You are warmly invited to a one day conference, which is devoted to the work of Ronald Britton.

Ron died in August 2025 at the good age of 93 years. The originality, range, and humanity of his psychoanalytic approach, plus his ideas, his insights and his writing, influenced colleagues around the world.

In the eyes of many, he was one of the leading psychoanalytic thinkers of our current time. This conference will give perspectives on his work and will discuss the potential of Ron's central ideas for further psychoanalytic exploration.

The event will also launch Ron's last book, 'Uncertain Facts and Certain Fictions: Psychic Reality in Literature and Psychoanalysis' a collection of his literary papers and other thoughts. 

Provisional Programme 

09:15am - 10:15am - Registration 

10:15am - 10:30am - Welcome from Gigliola Fornari Spoto

10:30am - 11:30am - Daniel Pick's paper  'Crossroads of Tragedy -  Reflections on Culture, Psychoanalysis and Political Life.'

 In a letter, Freud once intriguingly used the phrase ‘little tragedy’, after a painful personal loss.  In this talk Daniel Pick  describes that forgotten episode,  and situates it alongside other cultural and clinical illustrations of tragedy, large and small.  He considers various writers,  before and after Freud, who explored the genre of tragedy, and  the  consequences when it is actively denied, or prohibited.  Ron Britton and Jonathan Lear, who died within a short time of each other in 2025,  took up such issues  in varied and original ways.   Daniel  draws on some of their insights here.  The aim  of this presentation is thus to invite a wider discussion about how  an encounter with ‘the tragic’ relates to the psychoanalytic process, and how  it  might disturb, and enrich, a psyche, culture, or polity.

11:30am - 11.50am - Tea and Coffee Break

11:50am - 12:50pm - Rachel Blass's paper -  'On belief, doubt and the love of truth in the work of Ron Britton'

12:50pm - 1:50pm - Light Lunch with films of Ron

1:50pm - 2:05pm - Caroline Beatrice Garland will read two poems which grew out of conversations with RB during supervision, bearing on shared experience. 

2:05pm - 3:00pm - Susan Lawrence and David Simpson will introduce and discuss RB’s posthumously published book Uncertain Facts and Certain Fictions : Psychic Reality in Literature and Psychoanalysis.

3:00pm - 3:30pm - Tea and Coffee Break 

3:30pm - 5:30pm - David Taylor will introduce concise papers by three of RB’s closest, most esteemed friends and colleagues:

Michael Feldman will consider Selected Facts and Over-Valued Ideas; Margaret Rustin will speak about RB’s Contributions to the Innovative Work of the Tavistock Clinic’s Child and Family Department; John Steiner will speak on Ron Britton’s battle to emancipate the Ego from the dominance of the Super-ego.

The conference will be followed by dinner which is not included in the conference ticket - if you wish to book or would like more information, please click here

Throughout the day, and in each session, time will be set aside for discussion and contributions - both from those attending in person and from those online. 

Candidates and student discount codes are available on request, and there are limited bursary places. Book as soon as possible, as numbers are limited and demand for tickets is likely to be high. 

We hope you'll join us either in person in London, or online. Please note in person tickets are subject to availability and are likely to sell out. 

Rachel Blass is a training and supervising analyst of the Israel Psychoanalytic Society and a Member of the British Psychoanalytical Society. She is well known for her prolific writings that clarify, ground, and enrich Kleinian thinking and practice.

Michael Feldman is a training and supervising analyst, a Distinguished Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a former Chair of the Melanie Klein Trust. He is highly regarded for his contribution to psychoanalytic theory and his keen clinical insight. A selection of his papers, Doubt, Conviction and the Analytic Process, was published in 2009.

Caroline Garland is a psychologist and psychoanalyst who worked in the Adult Department of the Tavistock Clinic for 25 years. She has published several books and has a lasting interest in group psychology. In 1989 she founded the Tavistock’s Trauma Unit, which received referrals from across the country. She has taught both at home and internationally on the subject of trauma in adults.

Susan Lawrence is a training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society in full time private practice in London. She teaches in the UK and internationally. Susan has been a contributing author and editor of a number of psychoanalytic books. She is a Trustee of the Melanie Klein Trust.

Daniel Pick is a training analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London. He writes on history, politics and culture through a pschoanalytic lens and his publications include Psychoanalysis: A Very Short Introduction  - an account of the ‘talking cure’ and its history. 

Margaret Rustin is an Honorary Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and a child analyst at the British Psychoanalytical Society (BPAS). She teaches at the Tavistock and the BPAS, and also in many countries across the globe. In 2005 she was made an Honorary Affiliate Member of the BPAS. Her publications Finding a Way to the Child, a volume of her collected clinical papers. 

David Simpson is a training and supervising analyst and past President of the British Psychoanalytic Association, and a Fellow of the British Psychoanalytic Society. He was a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist the Tavistock Clinic where he led an all-age psychotherapy service for patients with autism and learning disabilities. He has written on a wide range of topics including autism, unconscious guilt, negative therapeutic reactions and inter-generational influences. 

John Steiner is a Distinguished Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a former Trustee of the Melanie Klein Trust. He is author of many key papers and books on the theory of ‘psychic retreats’ and other themes such as shame, psychotic and borderline states, and illusion and disillusionment. He is a Sigourney Award recipient. 

David Taylor is a training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society, an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust and visiting professor at University College London.

Gigliola Fornari Spoto is a Fellow and a training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. She trained as psychiatrist in Italy. She edited Eric Brenman’s book Recovery of the Lost Good Object (Routledge, 2006) and has a particular interest in psychoanalytical education. She is the Chair of the Melanie Klein Trust.