It is an important mission and goal of mankind to inquire, rethink and clarify the question of “what is the mind”, and the discussion of mind and personality is an important way to deeply recognize and understand mankind. Although scholars in different fields have already made various descriptions of personality, until Sigmund Freud, a famous Austrian psychologist known as “the Copernicus of the mind world”, founded the theory of psychoanalysis in the late 19th and early 20th century, the essence of human personality was truly examined. Psychoanalysis, with its unique discourse system and ideological framework, added a new perspective and tool to explore and explain the human mind.

The “object relation revolution” is another landmark change in the field of psychoanalysis after the “ego revolution”. School of Independents is an important promoter and intermediate force of the object relation revolution of psychoanalysis. It was born in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s and was the product of the famous “Freud-Klein Controversies” in the history of psychoanalysis. It became an indispensable political force within the British Psychoanalytic Society (BPAS) and maintained the balance of the BPAS. The Independents responded neutrally to the arguments between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein and their followers and tried to reconcile their conflicts. They critically drew on the thoughts of the Kleinians and Freudians to construct their own theories and promote psychoanalytic techniques. Through constant conversation with other psychoanalysts and being open to ideas from outsides, the School of Independents has made important progress. Donald Winnicott, Ronald Fairbairn and Michael Balint were together regarded as “the three leaders of the School of Independents”, and they were the most representative and innovative figures. Their theories have extensively and profoundly influenced and laid the ideological foundation of the subsequent independent psychoanalysts.

The independent psychoanalysts launched a radical theoretical revolution of the mind in the middle of the 20th century. On the basis of inheriting, criticizing and developing Freud and Klein’s thoughts, they made a detailed and innovative explanation of the structure of psychology and personality, the driving force and the process of development. They constructed models of psychological and personality structures with the ego or self as their core, believed that the driving force of mental development was searching for connection with objects, and emphasized the normal function and positive significance of aggression. Meanwhile, they expounded the development of psychology and personality on the basis of object relations, and held that the development was a process of transformation from dependence to independence or immature object relations to mature object relations.

The Independents played an important role in understanding and explaining the main goal of human psychology and personality. Their theories had important theoretical value, practical function and educational significance, which not only greatly developed the classical psychoanalysis, enriched and expanded our understanding of personality, directly changed our understanding of psychological development, but also had important enlightenment to the development of contemporary psychoanalysis and family education.