‘in the course of evolution the mind shows an ever-increasing tendency to free itself from physical control and, breaking loose from its bonds, to assert independence and live a life undetermined by the laws of its own nature.’
JA Hadfield (1882–1967) was a pioneer of psychodynamic psychotherapy in Britain. He lectured at London University for almost 30 years and was director of studies at the Tavistock Clinic for thirteen years[1].
JA Hadfield was born on 11 November 1882[2] on Loyalty Island[3], one of the South Sea Islands[4] in the South Pacific, where his father Rev. James Hadfield was a missionary[5] and his mother wrote and anthropological study of the natives[6].
He was educated in England at Eltham College[7], an independent school in South London; then at Mansfield College[8], Oxford, Queen’s College[9], Oxford and Edinburgh University[10],[11].
At Oxford Hadfield initially took a degree in arts and then read theology. While studying at Oxford he came under the influence of William McDougall, who was one of the early British psychologists. McDougall had studied medicine and physiology, was analysed by Jung and did his doctorate under WHR Rivers[12].
While at Oxford, Hadfield did some research work for McDougall on the relation of anthropology to psychology[13]. He became interested in abnormal psychology and this led him to take his degrees in medicine at Edinburgh University[14], graduating MB, ChB in 1916[15].
Early in his career Hadfield was influenced by mesmerism and the French suggestionists, particularly Liebault, Bernheim and Coué of the Nancy school[16]. He also attached great importance to the work of Janet, who he believed paved the way for modern dynamic psychology with its concept of unconscious mental activity[17].
After Hadfield completed his house appointments at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh[18] he joined up to become a surgeon-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy[19]. Towards the end of World War 1[20] he transferred to the Royal Army Medical Corps[21] and was posted to Ashurst War Hospital for Neurological Cases as a Medical Officer[22] with the rank of Captain[23]. William Mc Dougall was also at Ashurst and Hadfield ended up working with him as a Neurologist[24].
During and after World War 1 Hadfield successfully used hypnosis to treat shell-shock[25]. He found that this could be used to provide temporary relief, but to achieve more lasting results he believed it was necessary to discover the cause of the illness and to do this he used a combination of hypnotism and analysis[26]. Later he dropped using hypnotism, favouring what he called ‘direct reductive analysis’ and analysis by free association[27].
It was through his work on shell-shock that JA Hadfield got to know and became an intimate collaborator of Hugh Crichton-Miller[28]. William McDougall lists Hadfield as being part of what he called the British or ‘integral’ school who applied Freud’s ideas to the problem of shell-shock and also lists Hugh Crichton-Miller, WHR Rivers and William Brown as key members of that school[29]. Hadfield was also one of the contributors to Hugh Crichton-Miller’s book on shell-shock, Functional Nerve Disease.
Possibly, as they were both sons of the Manse[30], a bond was formed between Hugh Crichton-Miller and HA Hadfield because after the war JA Hadfield joined Hugh Crichton-Miller, first at Bowden House[31] and then became one of the seven founding staff members of the Tavistock Clinic in September 1920[32],[33]. It would also have been at Bowden House that JA Hadfield would have first met JR Rees, another son of the Manse[34], who was also one of the original seven[35],[36].
In the earliest of days at the Tavistock Clinic JA Hadfield was one of just two trained psychologists on the staff (the other being WA Potts in the Children’s Department)[37]. However from the start JA Hadfield was more active as a teacher and lecturer than a therapist, giving ten lectures on psychology and ethics in 1920[38] and influencing the theoretical orientation and teaching of the Tavi to a considerable extent[39],[40].
As well as working at the Tavi in 1920 JA Hadfield was appointed lecturer and university psychotherapist at Birmingham University[41]. A year or two later he moved to London, started practising in psychological medicine at Harley Street[42] and lecturing in psychopathology at Bethlem Royal Hospital[43].
In 1931 JA Hadfield became lecturer in psychopathology and mental hygiene at London University[44], a post he was to hold for almost thirty years[45].
In 1931 JA Hadfield also became one of the key figures involved in the setting up of the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency (ISTD) with Edward Glover[46] and is listed as one of their seven founding members[47] and as one of their founding Vice-Presidents[48].
JA Hadfield also had a key role in setting up the clinical wing of the ISTD when it was founded in 1933 and was responsible for naming it the Psychopathic Clinic[49]. In 1948 it changed its name to the Portman Clinic[50]. For a time JA Hadfield was very active in the ISTD, being part of their Scientific Committee, their Education Committee[51] and participating in their ‘Summer Schools’[52].
Coming from an academic background, Hadfield was influenced in his psychological approach by both Carl Jung and William McDougall. Hadfield was an original thinker who was never identified with any of the main schools of psychoanalysis[53]. His writings were repeatedly criticised by Ernest Jones for their lack of Freudianism[54],[55]. According to HV Dicks Hadfield’s insistence on both an instinct of aggression and the crucial role of infantile dependence (‘attachment’) anticipated trends in psychoanalysis by many years.
Although he did not spend much time at the Tavi, Hadfield’s influence gradually grew through the number of people who had received analytic training from him[56]. One of these was Wilfred Bion and others included: EA Bennett, Leonard Brown, Basil Archer and HV Dicks[57].
Wilfred Bion also accompanied Hadfield to the ISTD in its early days[58]. Nowadays, it is perhaps true that JA Hadfield is perhaps best known for being the analyst of Wilfred Bion, which was during the time that Bion was analysing the then little known absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett[59].
The increasing influence that Hadfield had at the Tavi may have been behind the resignation of Hugh Crichton-Miller as Medical Director of the Tavi in 1933[60]. With the move of the Tavi to new premises at the corner of Torrington Place and Malet Place[61] in 1932, JR Rees had put forward a proposal from the Medical Committee that JA Hadfield, with his connections at Kings College at London University, should be made Director of Studies at the newly named Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology[62]. Hugh Crichton-Miller blocked this at Council level, which caused a significant argument with JR Rees[63], who saw the education programme as being of strategic importance to the future of the Tavi.
After Hugh Crichton-Miller’s resignation, JR Rees became Medical Director in 1933[64],[65]. In 1935 JA Hadfield was appointed as Director of Studies[66]. He immediately established a two year training course for doctors wanting to take up psychotherapy[67], which consisted of: lectures, tutorial classes, and the personal treatment of cases with supervision[68]. It was important that thanks to JA Hadfield’s influence the Tavi received academic recognition from the University of London for its post-graduate Diploma in Psychological Medicine[69]. As well as this academic orientation, in his first year JA Hadfield ensured that there was also a wide programme of public lectures the highlight of which was a week of lectures by Carl Jung[70].
Under JR’s direction, with JA Hadfield organising education, the period from 1932 to 1939 was the Tavi’s greatest period of expansion in treatment, training, external lecture courses and in numbers of staff and trainees[71]. Many staff who joined teaching hospitals went to JA Hadfield for ‘training analysis’ and for many years he ran an informal group for younger psychiatrists at his house[72]. In these ways he exerted a quiet influence over the development of dynamic psychotherapy in England[73].
When the Second World War came JA Hadfield joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1940[74], becoming Officer in Charge of Division and Director of Studies at the 41st General (Neuropathic) Hospital[75]. He was joined there by other Tavi colleagues including Emmanuel Miller, Alan Maberly and Geoffrey Thompson[76]. By the end of the war Hadfield had attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel[77].
At the end of the war, in 1945, JA Hadfield resigned from his position at the Tavistock Clinic[78]. He had been one of the early fathers of the Tavistock doctrine, Director of Studies since 1934, but associated with its teaching programme since 1920[79]. HV Dicks succeeded him as Training Secretary[80].
As a writer JA Hadfield’s name became widely known in the 1920s for his book Psychology and Morals which he published during the Tavi’s campaigning period. At the end of his career he returned to writing publishing: Psychology and Mental Health (1950), Mental Health and the Psychoneuroses (1952), Childhood and Adolescence (1962), Introduction to Psychotherapy: its history and modern schools, Routledge (1967) and Dreams and nightmares (1969).
Interestingly, near the end of his life, in Introduction to Psychotherapy: its history and modern schools Hadfield returned to his early research under William McDougall and starts with a brief anthropological study of how primitive societies use methods similar to psychoanalysis[81], as well as covering early French influences on his thinking.
JA Hadfield died suddenly at his home on 4 September 1967, aged 84[82].
Author: Glenn Gossling 2020
JA Hadfield Bibliography
JA Hadfield, Psychology and Morals, Methuen (1920)
JA Hadfield, The Psychology of Power, MacMillan, 1923
JA Hadfield, Psychology and Modern Problems, University of London Press, 1935
JA Hadfield, Psychology and Mental Health, Allen and Unwin, 1950
JA Hadfield, Mental Health and the Psychoneuroses, Allen and Unwin, 1952
JA Hadfield, Childhood and Adolescence, Penguin Books, 1962
J. A. Hadfield, Introduction to Psychotherapy: its history and modern schools, Routledge, 1967
J. A. Hadfield, Dreams and nightmares, Penguin, 1969
Quotes
‘in the course of evolution the mind shows an ever-increasing tendency to free itself from physical control and, breaking loose from its bonds, to assert independence and live a life undetermined by the laws of its own nature.’[83]
‘the neurotic regress[es] and seek[s] refuge in the past when faced with the difficulties of life: the neurosis is an escape from an intolerable moral situation.’[84]
‘moral conflict itself originates in the past’[85]
‘When we feel the sense of guilt or shame at some remembered sin of the past, we perspire and the heart palpitates, just as much as when we are faced with an objective danger.’[86]
‘We feel now as Freud did originally, that the emotional release in some form or another is necessary to a successful cure’[87]
‘A neurosis though originating in the past is due to residues left in the patient’s present personality and problems out objective in treatment is to go into the past and discover the origins and there find the key to the present trouble; and having discovered it open the door to the problems of the present day pains, fears and obsessions.’[88]
‘What is the use of raking up the past? …the incontestable fact that by the reliving of the experiences of the past which caused the neurosis, the patient gets well’[89]
‘Explanation alone is useless unless we experience the fear, feel the shame as we originally felt it’[90]
‘There is no one who has not got some form or another of neurotic disorder’[91]
‘A cleric of high repute once said to me, “I should like to be analysed, for I am sure I have not a single complex!” My immediate thought was, “That is the first one to start off with!”’[92]
‘I have never been particularly enamoured of ‘schools’ of thought in psychotherapy.’[93]
‘During the First World War some Freudians said that the reason we feared Zeppelins was that they were phallic symbols’[94]
[1] EA Bennet, ‘History of Psychotherapy’, p366, British Medical Journal, 10 February 1968
[2] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[3] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[4] JA Hadfield, Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin, 1969
[5] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[6] J. A. Hadfield, Introduction to Psychotherapy: its history and modern schools, p11, Routledge, 1967
[7] JA Hadfield, Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin, 1969
[8] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[9] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[10] JA Hadfield, Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin, 1969
[11] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[12] B Shephard, War of Nerves, P83, Jonathan Cape, 2000
[13] JA Hadfield, Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin, 1969
[14] JA Hadfield, Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin, 1969
[15] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[16] EA Bennet, ‘History of Psychotherapy’, p366, British Medical Journal, 10 February 1968
[17] EA Bennet, ‘History of Psychotherapy’, p366, British Medical Journal, 10 February 1968
[18] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[19] JA Hadfield, Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin, 1969
[20] JA Hadfield, Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin, 1969
[21] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[22] H Crichton-Miller, Functional Nerve Disease, p61, Oxford University Press, 1920
[23] H Crichton-Miller, Functional Nerve Disease, pX, Oxford University Press, 1920
[24] JA Hadfield, Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin, 1969
[25] EA Bennet, ‘History of Psychotherapy’, p366, British Medical Journal, 10 February 1968
[26] EA Bennet, ‘History of Psychotherapy’, p366, British Medical Journal, 10 February 1968
[27] EA Bennet, ‘History of Psychotherapy’, p366, British Medical Journal, 10 February 1968
[28] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p23, Routledge, 1970
[29] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p22-23, Routledge, 1970
[30] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p59 , Routledge, 1970
[31] Hugh Crichton-Miller 1877 – 1959, A personal Memoir, p34, The Friary Press, 1961
[32] JR Rees, Reflections, p25, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[33] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p14, Routledge, 1970
[34] Hugh Crichton-Miller 1877 – 1959, A personal Memoir, p34, The Friary Press, 1961
[35] JR Rees, Reflections, p25, The United States Committee of the World Mental health Federation, 1966
[36] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p14, Routledge, 1970
[37] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p25, Routledge, 1970
[38] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p30, Routledge, 1970
[39] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p31, Routledge, 1970
[40] Torres and Hinshelwood, Bion’s Sources, p46, Routledge, 2013
[41] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[42] JA Hadfield, Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin, 1969
[43] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[44] ‘Obituary Notices, J.A. Hadfield’, p742, British Medical Journal, 16 September 1967
[45] EA Bennet, ‘History of Psychotherapy’, p366, British Medical Journal, 10 February 1968
[46] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p45, Routledge, 1970
[47] E Saville and D Rumney, Let Justice Be Done!, p125, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency, 1992
[48] E Saville and D Rumney, Let Justice Be Done!, p9, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency, 1992
[49] E Saville and D Rumney, Let Justice Be Done!, p10, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency, 1992
[50] E Saville and D Rumney, Let Justice Be Done!, p18, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency, 1992
[51] E Saville and D Rumney, Let Justice Be Done!, p29, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency, 1992
[52] E Saville and D Rumney, Let Justice Be Done!, p34, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency, 1992
[53] EA Bennet, ‘History of Psychotherapy’, p366, British Medical Journal, 10 February 1968
[54] N. Torres, Bion’s Sources, p46-7, Routledge 2013
[55] Torres and Hinshelwood, Bion’s Sources, p46, Routledge, 2013
[56] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p52, Routledge, 1970
[57] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p53, Routledge, 1970
[58] E Saville and D Rumney, Let Justice Be Done!, p10, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency, 1992
[59] C. Ross, Beckett’s Art of Absence, p20, Macmillan, 2011
[60] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p55, Routledge, 1970
[61] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p46, Routledge, 1970
[62] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p54, Routledge, 1970
[63] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p54, Routledge, 1970
[64] Royal College of Physicians, ‘Lives of the fellows, John Rawlings Rees’, http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/3726, 1 April 2019
[65] ‘Obituary, J.R. Rees’, British Medical Journal, p253, volume 2, 26 June 1969
[66] Institute of Medical Psychology (the Tavistock Clinic), Report for the period 1st January to 31st December, 1935, p6
[67] Institute of Medical Psychology (the Tavistock Clinic), Report for the period 1st January to 31st December, 1935, p12
[68] Institute of Medical Psychology (the Tavistock Clinic), Report for the period 1st January to 31st December, 1935, p12
[69] Institute of Medical Psychology (the Tavistock Clinic), Report for the period 1st January to 31st December, 1935, p12
[70] Institute of Medical Psychology (the Tavistock Clinic), Report for the period 1st January to 31st December, 1935, p13
[71] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p3, Routledge, 1970
[72] ‘Obituary, J.R. Rees’, British Medical Journal, p253, volume 2, 26 June 1969
[73] ‘Obituary, J.R. Rees’, British Medical Journal, p253, volume 2, 26 June 1969
[74] ‘Obituary, J.R. Rees’, British Medical Journal, p253, volume 2, 26 June 1969
[75] JA Hadfield, Dreams and Nightmares, Penguin, 1969
[76] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p103, Routledge, 1970
[77] ‘Obituary, J.R. Rees’, British Medical Journal, p253, volume 2, 26 June 1969
[78] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p119, Routledge, 1970
[79] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p119, Routledge, 1970
[80] HV Dicks, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic, p168, Routledge, 1970
[81] J. A. Hadfield, Introduction to Psychotherapy: its history and modern schools, p3, Routledge, 1967
[82] ‘Obituary, J.R. Rees’, British Medical Journal, p253, volume 2, 26 June 1969
[83] JA Hadfield, ‘Mind and Brain’, p21, in BH Streeter, Immortality, Macmillan, 1917
[84] JA Hadfield, Psychology and Mental Health, p120, Allen and Unwin, 1950
[85] JA Hadfield, Psychology and Mental Health, p140, Allen and Unwin, 1950
[86] JA Hadfield, Psychology and Mental Health, p157, Allen and Unwin, 1950
[87] JA Hadfield, Psychology and Mental Health, p408, Allen and Unwin, 1950
[88] JA Hadfield, Psychology and Mental Health, p425, Allen and Unwin, 1950
[89] JA Hadfield, Psychology and Mental Health, p427, Allen and Unwin, 1950
[90] JA Hadfield, Psychology and Mental Health, p431, Allen and Unwin, 1950
[91] J. A. Hadfield, Introduction to Psychotherapy: its history and modern schools, p1, Routledge, 1967
[92] J. A. Hadfield, Introduction to Psychotherapy: its history and modern schools, p1, Routledge, 1967
[93] J. A. Hadfield, Introduction to Psychotherapy: its history and modern schools, p4, Routledge, 1967
[94] J. A. Hadfield, Introduction to Psychotherapy: its history and modern schools, p4, Routledge, 1967