Khan referred to his father as "normally a cruel and authoritative feudal lord", observing him to be "a gaunt, bleak, monumental presence, either utterly still or raging in wild temper" for whose affection his sons competed and by whom they were disciplined with beatings, Masud, the youngest, was the only one to escape this form of punishment but nevertheless subjected to his father's high expectations and verbal chastisement.
[2][3][1] Masud Khan was raised with his older brother Tahir and his younger sister Mahmooda on his father's estate in the Montgomery District.
[2][1] Khan stated that he was groomed as his father's heir from the age of four, accompanying Fazaldad in conducting estate business and watching him preside over the local court.
His father's favorite child — Mohammed Baqar, different from his brothers, military men, in being an intellectual — was killed in a motorcycle accident aged 19 when a student at Oxford, the year before Khan's birth.
[2]: 11 Masud Raza Khan acquired his double Masters in English Literature and Psychology from University of Punjab and in 1946 applied to the British Psychoanalytic Association to be trained as an analyst, at the age of 22.
[4] In his later life Masud Khan's share of his father's vast estate was managed by his mother's illegitimate son Salahuddin ("Salah"; 1914-1979).
Another concept is that of "lying fallow", a state of mind entered by the patient after prolonged clinical work in which a metabolization of psychic transformation occurs.
Anna Freud insisted that Khan understood her father's work better than anyone else and spoke in defence of her star pupil whenever he aroused the British Psycho-Analytical Society's ire.
[8][9] He lost his status as training analyst and later resigned from the British Psychoanalytical Society after the publication of his last book When Spring Comes which included a remark about the Yiddish history of psychoanalysis which was deemed anti-semitic .
[8][9] Together with Beriosova he led a prominent social life 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.
[8][9] His paradoxical and highly unpredictable nature was summarised by his close friend and colleague, the French psychoanalyst, Victor Smirnoff, who wrote at his death:Certainly was an unusual man: gifted, beautiful, rich, intelligent.