Neville Symington trained as a Psychoanalyst at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London. He became Director of the Camden Psychotherapy Unit and later moved to the Tavistock Clinic, where he was Head of the Psychology Discipline in the Adult and Adolescent Departments. In 1986 he migrated to Australia and in the following year became Chairman of the Sydney Institute for Psychoanalysis and in 1999 President of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society, a position he held until 2002.

He is the highly acclaimed author of eleven books on psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, including The Analytic Experience a classic text based on a series of lectures given at the Tavistock Clinic; Narcissism – a new theory, Emotion and Spirit, The Clinical thinking of Wilfred Bion, The Making of a Psychotherapist, The Spirit of Sanity, A Pattern of Madness, How to choose a Psychotherapist and The Blind Man Sees. More recently Neville has written a novel - The Priest's Affair.