Tavistock Clinic
The Tavistock Clinic was founded in 1920 by Dr. Hugh Crichton-Miller, a psychiatrist who developed psychological treatments for shell-shocked soldiers during and after the First World War. The clinic's first patient was, however, a child. Its clinical services were always, therefore, for both children and adults. From its foundation it was also clear that offering free treatment to all who need it meant that the Tavistock Clinic needed to offer training to staff who could eventually help people across the UK. The clinical staff were also researchers. These principles remain to this day.
Following its founding the Tavistock Clinic continued its interest in preventative psychiatry, and developed expertise in group relations (including army officer selection), social psychiatry and action research. Its staff, who were still mainly unpaid honorary psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers were concerned about leadership within the armed forces. The staff prepared to treat the civilian population who might be traumatised by a further world war, which would bring bombing of cities, evacuation of children and the shock of bereavement.
After the Second World War, the Tavistock Clinic became a leading clinic within the newly-created National Health Service. At this point its education and training services were managed separately by the Tavistock Institute for Medical Psychology, which was also the umbrella for the Tavistock Institute (involved in social action research and thinking about group relations and organisational dynamics), and for work with marital couples. The clinic was managed on a democratic model by a professional committee and developed further its distinct focus on multi-disciplinary and community-centred work.
New developments in child and adolescent mental health were particularly fruitful in the immediate post-war period. In 1948 the creation of the children's department supported the development of training in child and adolescent psychotherapy. Dr. John Bowlby supported this new training and naturalistic infant observation. He also developed Attachment Theory. Clinicians James and Joyce Robertson showed in their film work the impact of temporary care on young children who did not have a significant substitute attachment figure (for example, when they were admitted to hospital for treatment).
The Tavistock Clinic opened its Adolescent Department in 1959, recognising the distinctive developmental needs and difficulties of younger and older adolescents. In the 1970s systemic psychotherapy became the Tavistock Clinic's newest professional training. Applications of the clinical ideas and skills of its multidisciplinary clinicians were at the heart of its education and training, with academically validated programmes developing from the early 1990s with the University of East London, and later with the University of Essex and Middlesex University.
The Tavistock Institute, which had been part of the Tavistock family, moved to its own premises in 1994. The Tavistock Centre for Couples Relationships (TCCR, formerly the Tavistock Institute of Marital Studies) was always a separate, charitably-funded organisation which left the Tavistock Centre for new premises in 2009.
In 1994 the Tavistock Clinic joined with the Portman Clinic to become the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. In 2006 the Trust acquired Foundation Trust status and become the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.
The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, as it is today, is a specialist mental health trust based in north London. Its contribution remains distinctive in the importance it attaches to social experience at all stages of people's lives, and in its focus on psychological and developmental approaches to the promotion of health and the prevention and treatment of mental ill health.
The Trust aims to provide high quality clinical services for children and families, young people and adults. it also provides multi-disciplinary training and education aimed at building an effective and sustainable NHS and Social Care workforce and at improving public understanding of mental health. These programmes include core professional training, for example in psychiatry, psychology, social work and advanced psychotherapy training, as well as applied programmes for anyone working in the mental health or social care workforce.
In addition to clinical services, postgraduate education and research, the Trust offers organisational consultancy, and has several decades of experience of exploring workplace dynamics from a unique psychological perspective.
The Trust is an active member of UCL Partners, the Academic Health Service Centre located in North London.
Notable people:
Arthur Hyatt Williams;
A. K. Rice;
David Campbell;
Eric Miller;
Eric Trist;
Hugh Crichton-Miller;
Isabel Menzies Lyth;
Jock Sutherland;
John Bowlby;
John Rawlings Rees;
John Rickman;
Martha Harris;
Michael Balint;
Pierre Turquet;
Robert H. Gosling;
Ros Draper;
Rosemary Whiffen;
Wilfred Bion.
