Charles Rycroft

Charles Frederick Rycroft (9 September 1914 – 24 May 1998) was a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He studied medicine at University College London, and worked briefly as a psychiatrist for the Maudsley Hospital. For most of his career he had a private psychiatric practice in London. He was the author of a number of notable books, including A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis (1968), The Innocence of Dreams (1979) and Psychoanalysis and Beyond (1985).

Rycroft was the second eldest son of Sir Richard Rycroft 5th Baronet (1859–1925) (see Rycroft Baronets) and Emily Mary Lowry-Corry ( see 2nd Earl Belmore). He grew up in Dummer, Hampshire, where his family owned most of the village and his father was "the local representative of both Church and State". He had one elder brother, Henry Richard Rycroft DSC OBE RN (1911–1985), and two younger sisters: Alice Juliana Rosamond Rycroft (1915–2006) and Eleanor Mary Rycroft (1918–2000). He also had two elder half-brothers, Nelson and Richard Michael, and a third, Veloyne, who died in infancy.

He was educated at Wellington College and then studied economics and history at Trinity College, Cambridge. He became interested in psychoanalysis and on applying to Ernest Jones was encouraged to study medicine. He studied at University College, London and training at the Maudsley Hospital. He underwent analysis firstly with Ella Freeman Sharpe and after her death with Sylvia Payne (inspiring a joke about the "sharps" and "pains" of analytic training).

Rycroft practised as a psychoanalyst from 1947 but became disillusioned because of the rivalry between the Kleinian and Freudian factions. He was influenced by W. R. D. Fairbairn and D. W. Winnicott from the Middle Group in developing his own views.

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