1920

Founding of the Tavistock Clinic by Hugh Crichton-Miller (1877-1959) reflected “small but growing interest in psychodynamic concepts” in post-War Britain. Edward Mapother, who took command of the Maudsley in 1923, was “highly critical of most psychodynamic hypotheses and regarded the Tavistock Clinic with disdain.” ( Edgar Jones, 13, 23). Aubrey Lewis arrived at the Maudsley in 1929 and Mapother appointed him clinical director in 1936 (21). He shared Mapother’s distrust of Tavistock (24-25). During the 1930s, many of the famous names of postwar British psychiatry (including John Bowlby, John Sutherland, and Wilfred Bion) learned clinical skills there under Mapother (22). The Maudsley closed in August, 1939 and reopened in September, 1945 (26, 31). Lewis prepared at request of Medical Research Council and then published in Lancet in 1942 a report on civilian neuroses in Britain, in response to American concern that British were downplaying and underreporting incidents of neuroses arising from air raids: “Lewis had adopted the explanation that most of the patients with neuroses would have developed them anyway. That these symptoms appeared in the context of the war was coincidental” (Casper I, 342) . . . Although there is no definitive evidence that it was propaganda, the document possesses an undeniable aesthetic quality, especially in the testimonials about the stoicism and courage of the civilians whose lives were ravaged by the bombardment. . . . Boundaries between the social and the professional had vanished within a narrative of resistance, patriotism, and commitment to maintain the morale of the nation” (343).