[4] Among her supervisees was John Bowlby while she also helped train D. W. Winnicott and Susan Isaacs.
[6] During the twenties and thirties, Searl published a number of theoretical contributions, on subjects ranging from childhood stammering to depersonalization.
[9] Perhaps her most significant contribution was however her article on technique of 1936, which has been described as a neglected classic, anticipating much later work on ego resistance in analysis.
[10] While previously Searl had been closely associated with the movement around Melanie Klein, the article aroused considerable hostility from Kleinians, in a way anticipating the later Controversial discussions[11] - hostility which ultimately resulted in Searl leaving the psychoanalytic movement.
[12] Searl's downplaying of the role of theory in the article - "The function of theory is to help the analyst's weakness on extra-analytical occasion and is of use to the patient only in this indirect fashion"[13] - may have contributed to this hostility; though again it can be seen as anticipating later positions such as those held by Joseph J. Sandler.