Patrick De Mare

Patrick Baltzar "Pat" de Maré (also De Mare, de Mare, DeMaré, DeMare /də ˈmɛər/; 27 January 1916 – 17 February 2008) was a British consultant psychotherapist with a special interest in group psychotherapy. He published several works on psychotherapy.

Pat De Mare was born in London, the son of B. E. A. de Maré who was of Swedish origin. He was educated at St Cyprian's School, Wellington College and Peterhouse College, Cambridge. He trained for medicine at St George's Hospital and qualified as a doctor in 1941. He enlisted in the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1942, and was trained for Army psychiatry by Rickman and Wilfred Bion at Northfield Hospital. It was an interesting time to work as a psychiatrist: the First World War had seen ground-breaking work in diagnosing and treating trauma, and with battle casualties arriving home, De Mare had plenty of patients to look after and study. He ran an Exhaustion Centre throughout the European campaign,[1] at the end of which he returned to Northfield Hospital, where he joined S. H. Foulkes and Tom Main in the Northfield experiment. Northfield became the centre of a series of experiments led by these eminent physicians, which studied how to deal with trauma caused by war.

After World War II he became a Consultant Psychotherapist at St George's Hospital. In 1952 he set up the Group Analytic Society with Foulkes, and later he participated in setting up the Institute of Group Analysis and the Group Analytic Practice. He also worked with Benaim and Lionel Kreeger at Halliwick Hospital, the short-lived therapeutic community.

De Mare devoted his skills to the practice of group psychotherapy, starting in the traditional small group psychotherapeutic setting, but progressing towards the experience and application of large groups, and later still developing his main interest of the median group.

In 1960, Wilfred Foulkes and De Mare set up a private clinic, the Group-Analytic Practice. From this work sprung the Group Analytic Society and then, in 1971, the Institute of Group Analysis. He had moved from Fitzrovia to Redington Road, Hampstead, in the 1960s and away from his work he became known for his love of good food, music and hosting parties.

In 1972 he published Perspectives in Group Psychotherapy and in 1974 Lionel Kreeger and he published Introduction to Group Treatment in Psychiatry, which was dedicated to the patients and staff at Halliwick Hospital.

In 1975 he started a large group under the auspices of the Institute of Group Analysis; in 1976 he was joined by Robin Piper. That 'large' group settled down to a steady membership of about 20 members and became a 'median' group. In 1984 he launched a weekly seminar on large groups that, in 1986, became part of a recognised large group section of the Group Analytic Society. He worked for many years at the Group Analytic Practice in London.

David Bohm underwent psychotherapy with De Mare and was heavily influenced by his work.[2][3]

De Mare was an accomplished accordion, banjo and ukelele player. He would play his accordion at bars and cafés in Hampstead. He also had a love of opera, and would play music at his practice in Baker Street.

After a long and debilitating illness resulting from a street accident he eventually died from pneumonia at the age of 92.

Publications

Notes

  1. ↑ Roger Chickering, Stig Förster The Shadows of Total War: Europe, East Asia, and the United States Cambridge University Press 2003 ISBN 0-521-81236-4
  2. ↑ David Bohm, F. David Peat Science Order and Creativity Routledge 2000 ISBN 0-415-17182-2
  3. ↑ F. David Peat Pathways of Chance Pari Publishing 2007 ISBN 88-901960-1-7

References

External links