Hugh Crichton-Miller (1877-1959)

Found among the papers of L R Reeve* this appreciation of the life of Dr Hugh Crichton Miller Scottish psychiatrist and founder of the Tavistock Clinic.

Tavistock Clinic**

DR HUGH CRICHTON-MILLER

  My appreciation of the late Dr Hugh Crichton-Miller is not in chronological order so I begin with an unusual admonition made in the middle of one of his talks to an audience of highly intelligent and respectful graduates: If you can't study the subject deeply leave psycho-analysis alone'.
His advice has never left my memory for two reasons: the very level-headed doctor was one of our greatest authorities on medical psychology, and a few weeks later the matron of a nursing home, having asked my opinion of the new psychology informed me that treatment was beneficial to half the patients concerned and disastrous to the others. Hence I was warned and I feel to-day that the warning is more imperative than ever before, not only to myself but to the increasing number of people concerned.
However, as psycho-analysis is not on my own terms of reference I refer to my next view of the specialist on the platform in Wimpole Street, when he so ably interpreted Dr Montessori's address. I have mentioned him in my reference to Montessori elsewhere so turn to my third episode when I heard him at the seaside.
  
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W.H.R. Rivers

Sometimes now known as 'The Psychiatrist of The Ghost Road' W.H.R.Rivers has a formidable reputation and holds a pivotal place in the development of neurophysiology, psychiatry/ psychology and anthropology - but he is probably most widely known for his wartime association with Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves and is featured in Pat Barker's 1995 Booker prize winning novel The Ghost Road. L.R. Reeve* some of whose encounters with famous people we are posting, actually never met him but saw him lecture and, sadly, missed a chance to meet him '…after he had addressed an audience at Cambridge he invited the London contingent to his rooms at St John's College for coffee and discussion. Some of us, I among them, wanted to return by the next train and reluctantly refused. What a chance I missed!' Nevertheless he has a good account of him:

W.H.R.RIVERS

Dr Rivers (1864 - 1922) was one of those rare men who call forth the best generous impulses of anyone with whom they come in contact. No extreme selfish extrovert, no criminal, nobody I should think, could resist his unconscious charm; and he himself, like Harold Nicolson, couldn't hate anybody.
  
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