Christopher Bollas

Christopher Bollas (born 1943) is a British psychoanalyst and writer. He is a leading figure in contemporary psychoanalytic theory.

Bollas was born in the United States in Washington, DC. He grew up in Laguna Beach, California, and later graduated in history from UC Berkeley in 1967. As an undergraduate Bollas studied intellectual history with Carl Schorske, and psychoanalytical anthropology with Alan Dundes. From 1967–69 he trained in child counselling at the East Bay Activity Center in Oakland, California and from 1969–73 he was the first graduate of the Program in Adult Psychotherapy at the University of Buffalo. At the University of Buffalo he earned a PhD in English Literature and studied with Norman Holland, Leslie Fiedler, Murray Schwartz, Michel Foucault, René Girard and with the Heideggerian psychoanalyst Heinz Lichtenstein. While at Smith College, to earn an MSW, he visited the Austen Riggs Center (where he was to become Director of Education a decade later) and met Erik Erikson who became a mentor early on in his career and was to be of singular influence for the next twenty years. He qualified in psychoanalysis at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London in 1977 and in Adult Psychotherapy from the Tavistock Clinic in 1978. Those teachers and figures whom he knew and who helped diversify his thinking were Arnold Modell, John Bowlby, André Green, Herbert Rosenfeld, Joseph J. Sandler, J.-B. Pontalis, Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel, Marion Milner, Nina Coltart, and Paula Heimann.

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