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John Derg Sutherland

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Dr John Derg Sutherland ("Jock Sutherland") FRSE CBE (1905-1991) was a Scottish physician, psychoanalyst and theorist, notable also for his role as Medical Director of the Tavistock Clinic

Life and career

He was born in Edinburgh on 23 April 1905, the youngest of eight children.[1] He studied Medicine at both Edinburgh University and Glasgow University.

As a psychiatrist in Edinburgh, Sutherland undertook a Training analysis with W. R. D. Fairbairn. In 1935, aged only 30, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were James Drever, Sir Godfrey Thomson, W. R. D. Fairbairn and Francis Albert Eley Crew.[2]

At the onset of the Second World War he moved to a psychiatric unit in Glasgow, expecting a wave of mentally scarred soldiers.[3] In 1942 he moved to London to work at the Tavistock Clinic, serving as its Director from 1947-68. From 1968 to 1974 he worked at the Royal Edinburgh Hospial for Mental and Nervous Disorders in Morningside, Edinburgh.

He published a number of articles on pychoanalytic subjects, from object relations theory to group therapy, both singly and co-authored; as well as having an extensive private practice.[4]

Among the colleagues he worked with, and whose careers he fostered, were Charles Rycroft and R. D. Laing.[5]

His work in the States played a significant part in opening up ego psychology to the object relations tradition.[6]

He died in Edinburgh on 14 June 1991.

Publications

  • Fairbairn's Journey into the Interior (1989)
  • The Autonomous Self (1994)

Sutherland's biography of John Buchan examines the theme of autonomy and compliance as explored in Buchan's writings.[7]

See also

3


References

  1. ^ http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02668739200700411?journalCode=rpps20
  2. ^ BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF FORMER FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 1783 – 2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.
  3. ^ http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02668739200700411?journalCode=rpps20
  4. ^ J. Scharff, The Psychodynamic Image (2005) p. x
  5. ^ R. D. Laing, The Divided Self (2010) Preface
  6. ^ The Autonomous Self
  7. ^ J. Scharff ed., The Autonomous Self (1994) p. 364