Dr Leslie Tucker was one of the seven original members of staff at the Tavistock Clinic[1] in 1920. He came to the Tavi from Bowden House, the private nursing-home opened by Hugh Crichton-Miller in 1911[2],[3]. At that time he was recently qualified and had just done house jobs before starting at to Bowden House as a resident medical officer[4]. At Bowden House he was trained by Hugh Crichton-Miller who had just returned from active service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the First World War[5]. Hugh Crichton-Miller’s method of teaching was by case conferences and by discussions on diagnostic and theoretical psychopathological lines[6]. He developed it at Bowden House and brought it with him to the Tavistock Clinic[7]. The whole staff attended a weekly supervision conference meeting where they reported what they were doing with their patients and how the patients were doing[8]. In this way the conference learnt from each others’ concepts, techniques and habits and were also confronted with their own blind spots and mistakes[9].
Author: Glenn Gossling 2020
[1] JR Rees, Reflections, p25, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[2] Hugh Crichton-Miller 1877 – 1959, A personal Memoir, p28, The Friary Press, 1961
[3] ‘Obituary’,p116, British Medical Journal, 10 Jan 1959
[4] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p15, Routledge, 1970
[5] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p26, Routledge, 1970
[6] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p26, Routledge, 1970
[7] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p26, Routledge, 1970
[8] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p26, Routledge, 1970
[9] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p26, Routledge, 1970