Masud Khan

Mohammed Masud Raza Khan (July 21, 1924—June 1989) was an Indian-born British psychoanalyst. His training analyst was Donald Winnicott.

Early life

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Important figures Alfred Adler Michael Balint Wilfred Bion Josef Breuer Nancy Chodorow Max Eitingon Erik Erikson Ronald Fairbairn Paul Federn Otto Fenichel Sándor Ferenczi Anna Freud Sigmund Freud Erich Fromm Harry Guntrip Karen Horney Edith Jacobson Ernest Jones Carl Jung Heinz Kohut Melanie Klein Jacques Lacan Ronald Laing Margaret Mahler Jacques-Alain Miller Sandor Rado Otto Rank Wilhelm Reich Joan Riviere Isidor Sadger Ernst Simmel Sabina Spielrein James Strachey Harry Stack Sullivan Susan Sutherland Isaacs Donald Winnicott
Important works The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901) Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905) Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) The Ego and the Id (1923)
Schools of thought Self psychology Lacanian Jungian Object relations Interpersonal Relational Ego psychology
Training Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis British Psychoanalytic Council British Psychoanalytical Society Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research International Psychoanalytical Association World Association of Psychoanalysis
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Khan was born in Jhelum in the Punjab district of British India, in what became Pakistan, to Fazaldad Khan and his fourth wife, Khursheed Begum. He was a wealthy landowner, and she a beautiful.^[1] According to the family Kursheed Bagam was married to a "Peer Syed Jumla Shah" of village Kotayan Sherif Jhelum. She was married at a very young age and her husband died after few short years. Masud Raza Khan's mother first marriage two children with Syed Jumala Shah and later married Raja Fazaldad Khan.

His father Sirdar (or Sardar) Khan Bahadur, Raja Fazal Dad Khan was a hereditary Landlord (or Zamindar) and was commissioned with a British Army cavalry unit. British government honored him with vast lands where he later formed 3 estates. All of his states (Montgomery, Chakwal and Lyallpur) were later divided among his 9 sons.

Khan Bahdur Fazal Dad Khan married 4 times and had 9 sons of those, five joined the Army and became officers. His elder brother, Muhammed Akbar Khan was the first Indian Muslim to become a General in the British Indian Army. His brother, General Muhammad Anwar Khan was the first Engineer in Chief of the Pakistan Army and his brother Major General Muhammed Iftikhar Khan was an officer inherited by the Pakistan Army from British India. He had been nominated to become the first local Commander in Chief of the Pakistan Army after General Douglas David Gracey's retirement. However, his death in a tragic plane crash in 1949 was a disaster for the newly formed country.

Masud Khan's mother Kursheed Bagam bore 3 kids with Raja Fazaldad Khan. Masud Khan was raised with his older brother, Tahir, and his younger sister, Mahmooda, in the Montgomery District on his father's estate, moving to Lyallpur when Khan was 13. He was not allowed to see much of his mother, though when his father died in 1943 when Khan was 19, he went to live with her.^[1]

According to the family, Masud Khan's mother wanted to bring her children from previous marriage to Lyallpur estate which his father didn't agree. Masud Khan and his sibling were moved by their father's to Montgomery estate to punish him mother by a feudal landlord with terrible temper.

In his later life, Masud Khan's estate was managed by his step brother Syed Salah ud Din a.k.a Raja Salah who was also an executor for the family estate at 222 RB commonly know as Kot Raja Fazaldad Khan(Nawabwala)Faisalabad. In 1956, Masud Khan with his brother, Tahir and Raja Salah build a cinema under the name "REX" in Lyallpur. After the fall of Pakistani cinema industry in 1980's, it was later changed into "Masud Super Market and Rex Hotel".

Khan wrote in his Work Books that he inherited his shyness, sensitivity, and warmth from his mother, and from his father, an "imperious capacity for work and a terrible temper."^[2] He had a slight deformity, a right ear that stuck out, of which he was very conscious, later taking to wearing a beret in order to hide it, until Winnicott persuaded him to have it fixed in 1951.^[1]

Education

Khan attended the University of Punjab at Faisalabad and Lahore from 1942-5. He obtained his BA in English literature, and his MA for a thesis on James Joyce's Ulysses.^[3]

Masud Raza Khan acquired his double Masters in English Literature and Psychology from University of Punjab and later applied to the British Psychoanalytic Association to be accepted as an analyst. Later Masud Raza Khan became a legend in British and International Psychoanalyst community for his literary and analytical work.

Quoting Jeffrey Masson: Khan about British psychoanalysis

^[4]

Contributions to Psychoanalysis

Few psychoanalysts from the latter half of the twentieth century have been as intellectually prolific, charismatic and ultimately scandalous as Masud Khan. Clinical practice and teaching went alongside his authoring over 60 published papers, as well as numerous reviews, and editing significant portions of Winnicott's literary output and that of other key luminaries within the psychoanalytical canon.

Masud Khan was both highly controversial as well as a significant contributor to psychoanalytic thinking, functioning as editor of psychoanalytical publications as well as contributing via his own writings. His contributions include the concept of cumulative trauma as creating psychopathology introducing the concept of lack of fit between child and parent creating an ongoing trauma affecting development. He produced a number of papers highlighting perversions as stemming from a split within the personality and the acting out of disturbed object relations collected in his book "Alienation in Perversions." He wrote a significant sequence of three papers on the use of dreams in psychoanalysis as well as a series of clinical papers showing his unique intuitive style combined with his application of Winnicott’s then new concepts of potential space and transitional object in the analysis of adult patients. Khan demonstrates the importance of influencing the patient’s environment outside of the analytic setting in line with Winnicott’s emphasis on the environment as a therapeutic tool.

Controversy

Khan’s position in the British Psychoanalytic association as training analyst gave him an air of legitimacy while at the same time he became less and less adherent to psychoanalytic guidelines with gross boundary violations including socializing with his students and analysands,^[5][6]

He lost his status as training analyst and was eventually removed from the British Psychoanalytic Association after the publication of his last book "When Spring Comes" in which he included a blatantly anti-semitic tirade against a Jewish patient.^[7] In his later years he insisted on being called Prince Raja Khan and signed letters in this way, claiming to have inherited the title from his Pakistani ancestors, however, this claim was never substantiated.^[6] His family claimed that the anti-semitic sentiments originated when his sister in law(Tahir's) wife took the proceeds of his estate moving millions of dollars to Israel.

Quoting Dr. Linda Hopkins: Author of FALSE SELF The Life of Masud Khan.

                                                       Email to the nephew by Dr. Linda Hopkin, dated Feb 30th, 2014.

^[5]

Personal life

Khan was married initially to the dancer Jane Shore whom he later divorced and married well known ballerina Svetlana Beriosova.^[5][6] Together with Beriosova he led a prominent social life and was present in a London scene which included well known figures such as actress Julie Andrews, photographer Zoë Dominic, actor Peter O'Toole and members of the Redgrave family.^[5] Khan was described as tall, handsome with oriental charm and sex appeal, he was known as charming, charismatic and infamous for impromptu flashes of psychoanalytic insights given randomly to people met at social occasions.^[5][6] His paradoxical and highly unpredictable nature was summarized by his close friend and colleague, the French psychoanalyst, Victor Smirnoff, who wrote at his death:^[8]

Masud Khan both marriages bore no children. The only family that he knew was his mother, brother Tahir, brother Salah and his children. While living in England, he often spent his vacation time visiting his mother and step brother Raja Salah ud Din on his estate in Faisalabad. He spent his vacations trying to get a "family life" that he missed in UK. He was very close to his nephews Ali Raza, Mahmood Raza, Mohsin Raza and his three nieces. Masud Raza Khan died in peace in his home in London in the year 1989.

Literature

Biography

• Linda Hopkins: FALSE SELF The Life of Masud Khan., New York: Other Press, 2006
• Roger Willoughby (Author), Pearl King (Foreword): Masud Khan: The Myth And The Reality [ILLUSTRATED], Publisher: Free Association Books; 1 edition (January 2005), ISBN 978-1-85343-724-3
• Judy Cooper: Speak of Me As I Am: The Life and Work of Masud Khan, Publisher: Karnac Books; 1 edition (February 1, 1994), ISBN 978-1-85575-044-9

Books by Masud Khan

• "The Privacy of the Self" (1974)
• "Alienation in Perversions" (1979), Publisher: Karnac Books (October 1979), ISBN 978-0-946439-62-1
• "Hidden Selves" (1983)
• "The Long Wait" (1988)

Notes

External links

• Saving Masud Khan, by Wynne Godley A first-hand account of analysis under Khan
• Psycho Analyst, By AMY BLOOM New York Times, Published: January 21, 2007
• The Review - BOOKS Published: 20 November 2008
• The Institute of Psychoanalysis & British Psychoanalytical Society