Gianna Williams trained as a child and adult therapist and was part of the teaching staff of the Tavistock Clinic in the 1970s and later Consultant Psychotherapist at the Adolescent Department of the Tavistock, where in 1987 she founded the Eating Disorders Workshop. She has taught at the Tavistock Clinic and University of East London, and the Universities of Pisa and Bologna and has founded numerous courses based on the Tavistock model in Italy, France and Latin America.

• Series Editors' Preface -- Author's Note -- Introduction -- The Inner World of the Child -- Thinking and Learning in Deprived Children -- Double Deprivation -- On Gang Dynamics -- Self-Esteem and Object Esteem -- On the Process of Internalisation -- Poor Feeders -- Reversal of the `Container/Contained' Relationship -- The No-Entry System of Defences -- On Introjective Processes -- Foreign Bodies