Talk:Tavistock Clinic

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John Rawlings Rees was a doctor of the original staff of the Tavistock Clinic, became deputy-director in 1926, and full-director in 1933. Became a consulting psychiatrist to the British Army in 1938. Medical doctor for Rudolf Hess since 1941. Founding president of the World Federation for Mental Health since 1948, which acts as a consultant to the United Nations. Died in 1969. According to an e-mail reply to enquiries of the present Tavistock and Portman Trust

Dr J R Rees [John Rawlings Rees] took over as Medical Director after ten years, in 1933. He later played an important role as director of military psychiatry in the Second World War and many new ideas of group psychotherapy and institutional understanding came from the work of army psychiatrists, which were influential in the Clinic after the War. He was never given a knighthood. From another e-mail reply from the trust. See [1]

This is part of a crackpot conspiracy theory. The cite is to a whacko personal website. It all tracks back to Lyndon LaRouche. Please stop trying to insert this conspiracist material into Wikipedia.--Cberlet 01:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

What! I referred to information given by the Tavistock Trust, and written by Rees. I also refer to a biography of Kurt Lewis which confirms links with Tavistock and Rees. The involvement of Rees with Hess is well documented in the diaries he left from 1941 to 1945 and the Nuremeburg trial. You are obsessed with LaRouche, who I have never mentioned or quoted. Once again I ask that you only modify what I wrote as required by rules, do not wipe out my work. You should not remove a statement backed by the citation of a book by a reputable publisher written by a student of Kurt Lewis long ago - that can by no stretch of the imagination be attributed to a LaRouche conspiracy. --86.144.101.232 08:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It does see to me that the article you linked to refered to Rees as part of the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, which is a different organisation. Can you provide any references [page numbe4rs, ISBNs, quotes?] --Duncan 11:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The official site of the Tavistock and Portland trust says that the Tavistock Clinic was founded in 1920. Much confusion has been caused to many people over the years by the various name changes. According to the official site, the 'clinic' carried out both clinical and consultancy work until 1948 'when 'it' became part of the new national health service.' In fact, I deduce that the new 'clinic' is a different entity from the original one, in that it only carries forward the clinical side, leaving behind the other activities under the name institute. So Rees might today be assumed to have been with the 'institute' doing research and consultancy, but of course there was no 'institute' when Rees began, as it all came under the heading of clinic. If you are suggesting that there might have been a different Rees, then this is of course very unlikely, since the man we are talking about is undoubtedly John Rawlings Rees, which seems a unique name. If you are suggesting that he did not work at the Tavistock Clinic, then this is not true, as the official site says that he did. There have been many other titles, such as Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (now simply Tavistock Institute according to the official site), and the Tavistock centre for couple relationships (formerly Tavistock Marrital Studies Institute (founded 1948 as the Tavistock Family Discussions Bureau), but they are undoubtably just divisional names given at various times to different activities under the same Tavistock organisation (originally Tavistock Clinic). I think confusion arises because when articles refer to the 'parent body' now they often refer the the 'Institute', and the clinic is just the NHS side of Tavistock activities. Originally it was the other way round, as there was only the 'clinic', out of which came the 'institute'. It's all the same Tavistock fundamentally, but strictly Rees was with the clinic. An official job description for Director, 'The Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology', talks of the 'Tavistock tradition', and goes on to say that the 'centre for couple realationships' is an operating unit of the 'Institute for medical psychology' [2]. It may be that the article simply muddled the names, using the most relevant present day one. --86.135.218.31 01:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

No the article has not muddled the names: these different organisations with the word Tavistock in their titles are fully independent of each other. The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (which is still that charity's formal name) is not part of the Clinic. The The Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology is also a separate organisation. I can also confirm that French's Mustard and France are not connected. --Duncan 12:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Material removed and now under condideration here:

A controversial figure in the history of the original Tavistock Clinic was John Rawlings Rees, who has been accused by various commentators of setting up a world-wide network to undermine the values of Western civilisation [3] [4]. According to information from the current Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust [5], John Rawlings Rees was a doctor of the original staff of the Tavistock Clinic, became deputy-director in 1926, and full-director in 1933. He became a consulting psychiatrist to the British Army in 1938, medical doctor for Rudolf Hess since 1941 and founding president of the World Federation for Mental Health since 1948, which acts as a consultant to the United Nations. He played an important role as director of military psychiatry in the Second World War and many new ideas of group psychotherapy and institutional understanding came from the work of army psychiatrists, which were influential in the Clinic after the War. He died in 1969. The following quotes from Rees appear to confirm some of the allegations against him.

"We can therefore justifiably stress our particular point of view with regard to the proper development of the human psyche, even though our knowledge be incomplete. We must aim to make it permeate every educational activity in our national life…. We have made a useful attack upon a number of professions. The two easiest of them naturally are the teaching profession and the Church: the two most difficult are law and medicine." - Quoted from "Mental Health", June 18, 1940 [6].

"Public life, politics and industry should all of them be within our sphere of influence…. If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people I think we must imitate the Totalitarians and organize some kind of fifth column activity! If better ideas on mental health are to progress and spread we, as the salesmen, must lose our identity… Let us all, therefore, very secretly be ‘fifth columnists.’" - Quoted from "Strategic Planning for Mental Health". "Mental Health 1", no. 4, October 1940, pages 103-4) [7].

Rees has been linked to the Frankfurt school of Cultural Marxism via Kurt Lewin. According to a biography of Kurt Lewin written by Alfred J Marrow, "Kurt Lewin was the key link in the Frankfurt School/Tavistock migration to America."

Conspiracy theory material from the LaRouchites concerning Rees and Tavistock should not be added to this page, even if it is being laundered by various websites.--Cberlet 01:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Nothing hs been added here from 'LaRouchites'. The fact that LaRouch may have said the same thing does not make it 'conspiracy theory'. Our job is to sort out evidence for what is the truth before condemning something as a conspiracy theory and banning all further entries on that basis. Much of the evidence available, especially the published lectures, predates LaRouch by many decades, making LaRouch a minor commentator on this topic. David Icke has published masses of material that mixes fact with fiction, but that doesn't mean that it's all untrue, he's just repeating what he reads and is told indiscriminately. --86.135.218.31 01:59, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Wrong, our job is to cite reputable published sources, not repackage conspiracy theories from antisemitic crackpots.--Cberlet 02:28, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

So what is a reputable published source if an article by the man himself in a journal is not good enough - or are you challenging the existence of those articles? Are you saying that the name of Rees was made up by LaRouch? Are you saying that a man of that name never existed at the Tavistock? If you concede that he did exist and was at the Tavistock then please say so here and allow an entry to that effect, as many would consider it highly relevant in view of the exceptional amount of material on the Web about him. If not, then say so and I will try to prove here that he did exist, and was there. At the moment, it is you who is looking like a total and irrational censor on this and other sites in regard to this issue. --86.135.218.31 08:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

First, let me ask you to please read some of the Wikipedia rules and guidelines for citing reputable published sources. Second, you apparently do not understand the concept of citation.

Here is one paragraph you posted:

• "Public life, politics and industry should all of them be within our sphere of influence…. If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people I think we must imitate the Totalitarians and organize some kind of fifth column activity! If better ideas on mental health are to progress and spread we, as the salesmen, must lose our identity… Let us all, therefore, very secretly be ‘fifth columnists.’"

• - Quoted from "Strategic Planning for Mental Health". "Mental Health 1", no. 4, October 1940, pages 103-4) [8].

You do not have a copy of the the text ("Strategic Planning for Mental Health". "Mental Health 1", no. 4, October 1940). You have simply found the text on the website <conservativeusa.org>. This is the website of the Conservative Caucus run by Howard Phillips, an ultra-conservative ideologue who feels modern psychiatry is part of a communist plot. It is a website, and Phillips has no expertise in the field of psychiatry. Therefore, unless this quote is verified in a scholarly or major journalistic source, or tracked back to the original document, it cannot be cited on Wikipedia.

The original text from the Tavistock page reads as follows:

• "The Second World War saw many of the Tavistock's professional staff joining the armed services as psychiatric specialists, where some (notably Dr Wilfred Bion) introduced radical new methods of selecting officers, using the 'leaderless group' as an instrument to observe which men could take responsibility for others, by being aware of their preoccupations rather than simply by giving orders. This led to reductions in the number of applicants rejected."

• source

This is what you wrote:

• "The Second World War saw many of the Tavistock's professional staff joining the armed services as psychiatric specialists, where some [ -- notably psychoanalyst ] Wilfred Bion [and psychiatrist John Rawlings Rees-- ] introduced radical new methods of selecting officers, using the [so-called] leaderless group as an instrument to observe which men could take responsibility for others by being aware of their preoccupations rather than simply by giving orders. This led to reductions in the number of applicants [who were] rejected. [Rees became psychiatrist to Rudolph Hess during his imprisonment at secret locations in Britain from 1941 to 1945, when he was one of the three man team assisting at the Nuremburg Trial."]

So what you have done is to plagiarize the material from the Tavistock page, wrongly insert the name of Rees, which is not mentioned on the Tavistock page, and insert the material about Rees and Hess, which has nothing to do with the Tavistock clinic unless you can find a reputable published source.

I am revising the material accordingly.--Cberlet 13:00, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Rawlings Rees was Director of the Tavistock Clinic (or not)

Confirmation of the above fact can be found at the Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing website [9]. This is a site for professionals which aims to put original texts relating to the field online. In its introduction to "The Shaping of Psychiatry by War" by John Rawlins Rees, the site says, "The Salmon Lectures, delivered by the consulting psychiatrist to the British Army and Medical Director of the Tavistock Clinic, compose this volume. The author's extensive experience with psychiatry during World War I as well as in World War II makes it the expression of mellowed observation and judgment." The article made available there was in "The Psychoanalytic Quarterly" 14:544-545 (1945). --86.135.126.154 21:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

This source says he was Medical Director, which is not the same as being the Director. However, with this source I am happy to add to the article that he was medical director. However, my unreferenced understanding (my girlfriend work for the Tavi) is that his Tavistock work was up to 1939, and his Amry services was after that: that he did not hold these positions at the same time. It should also be noted, for example, how many sources incorrectly cite him as a member of the staff of the Institute, which did not exist at that time. That is an example of how polluted secondary sources are, and how careful and cautious we must be. --Duncan 10:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The issue is not about blocking accurate information about Rees and Tavistock, the issue is sifting out the outlandish and often false claims originally spread by the fanatic LaRouchites. Much of the information on the web about Rees and Tavistock is flawed.--Cberlet 12:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I think we have to be extra-vigilant on these pages. I will add in the reference to Rees. --Duncan 13:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

The claims made about Rees are so widespread that it seems unlikely that LaRouch was the original source for them. In general they are consistent, and I cannot find any evidence to prove them untrue. That does not make them true of course, but it is not our job only to report truth here and I suggest that before referring to them as 'often false' you should produce evidence to that effect.

To claim that he worked for the Tavistock Institute is actually no less correct than to say that he worked for the Tavistock Clinic, since the latter name was only the popular term used to refer to what should be correctly called the 'Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology' - the original Tavistock parent body out of which came the later Clinic and Institute that still exist today. Conceptually therefore, Rees would appear to have been in on the start of the work which was to lead to the naming of a separate department as 'Institute'. I think we need to recognise on this page the imporant fact that 'Tavistock Clinic' was the popular name used to refer to the parent body, as well as refering separately to the present day Clinic.

I think your girlfriend's information is incorrect Duncan. Rees and his co-workers continued their involvement in the Tavistock throughout WW2, as indicated by the fact that Rees was elected onto the 'Interim Planning Commitee' that met to decide the future direction of the Tavistock in Autumn 1945. This is confirmed in the writings of Eric Trist, who joined the group at that time, and later became chairman of the Tavistock Institute.

--86.135.179.98 12:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think your post re-emphasises the need for us to distinguish between these different organisations. LaRouchite orginality is not an issue here: however, claims associated with them are under explicit review here at Wikipedia. The very fact than people equate the TIHR with the Clinic, and move staff and activities between them to prove their points, is also a real issue. --Duncan 15:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Duncan, you seem intent on keeping the various bodies that have gone under the name of Tavistock separate, and denying that they all came out of a parent body and thus have a common history that is of great interest given the world-wide influence of the Tavistock over eighty years. I don't understand how you can maintain this effort when the true history is written in detail in many places by founder members. Read the published accounts and you will see that there is no doubt about any of this. These accounts spell out how the original Tavistock 'clinic' was the parent body and how the original 'Tavistock group' went on to plan future strategy with the emphasis on object relations and on attempting to change society through many institutions. They spell out how government funding and grants were obtained, how projects were run that involved major businesses in developing new ways of relating, and even refer to the 'matrix'! Any conspiracy theory seems to be yours, against explaning the true history of the Tavistock. What links the various Tavistock bodies is continuity of key figures, like Trist, and Rees, and Bion. The changes in name only reflect the sort of organisational changes that occur in all big organisations for practical reasons, usually to do with separating out the funding of different activities. These too are all spelt out in detail by the key players themselves in their writings. Are you really suggesting that the Tavistock Institute was not born out of the original 'Clinic' as it was popularly known? If so you need to read the official history properly. Read the account by Trist at [10] fully, and you will surely be left in no doubt that he is talking about all that came out of the original Tavistock Clinic, which he clearly refers to as the parent body of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and all of the other Tavistock bodies that followed. --86.135.176.81 21:57, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Keep up this anonymous campaign of harassment and I will seek to have the page locked against anonymous edits. Stop being disruptive.--Cberlet 00:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

<----------Pick a name. Any name. Let's discuss edits. But this anonymous multi-URL stuff has to stop. Edit in good faith. Edit with a single identity. And we move forward.--Cberlet 00:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Signing comments is a standard requirement:

Help:Talk page#Basic rules for all talk pages, Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages, Wikipedia:Username. --Cberlet 00:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)