The Tavistock Clinic saw its first patient, a child, on 27 September in 1920. The first patient  was seen by Dr Hamilton Pearson on 27 September 1920 and this is where we take the date of our founding from. The second patient was an adult and was seen by Mary..Read More

During the 1920s the Tavistock Clinic grew. Speech Therapy and Social Work were added to the services provided by the Clinic and towards the end of the decade a hostel was opened for patients from outside London. Education and training at the Clinic grew at a considerable rate. In the..Read More

In 1929 the Tavistock Clinic acquired a nearby Bloomsbury house and opened a hostel for patients who lived too far for regular attendance. The hostel was under the medical supervision of EA Bennet and run by Muriel Payne.

By the end of the 1920s the building on Tavistock Square was no longer big enough. JR Rees, who had been deputy director since 1926, established an extension fund, called the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, to raise money for new premises and on 9 August 1929 it was formally..Read More

On 22nd July 1931 Grace Pailthorpe formed the Association for the Scientific Treatment of Criminals (ASTC), which subsequently became the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency (ISTD). Along with Grace Pailthorpe the other founders of the ASTC were: Dr M. Hamblin-Smith, Dr David Eder, Dr Edward Glover, Dr James..Read More

In November 1932 the Tavistock Clinic moved into a new building on the corner of Torrington Place and Malet Place. It was positioned alongside the University of London and renamed the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology. The building had previously been the stables for a Tottenham Court Road department store,..Read More

JR assumed the leadership of the Tavistock Clinic as Medical Director in 1933, after Hugh Crichon-Miller’s resignation. Hugh Crichton-Miller’s resignation as Director followed a heated argument with JR Rees over the appointment of JA Hadfield as a Director of Training.

In 1932 Wilfred Bion joined the Tavistock Clinic. He was part of a new generation of recruits at the Tavi. This cohort also included: Leonard Browne, HV Dicks, Mary Luff and Charles Berg. Several of these came under the influence of JA Hadfield, who at that time was responsible for..Read More

In 1935 Carl Jung gave a weeklong series of lectures at the Tavistock Clinic.

Mary Luff undertook the first follow-up study assessing the results of treatment  at the Tavistock Clinic three years after discharge. This  pioneering survey seeking to provide an evidence base for the work of the clinic was published in the British Medical Journal on 13 July 1935. The figures showed that overall..Read More

In 1936, after six years of calling ourselves the Institute of Medical Psychology we reverted to our old name. The ‘Tavistock Clinic’ name had proved to have such popular common usage that it was futile to fight it. However, in recognition of JR Rees dream of the future, the sub-title..Read More

As with many organisations, the war years were a test of survival for the Tavistock Clinic. The story for those who did not join up was very different to those who did. The Tavistock Clinic was evacuated to the Westfield Women’s College in Hampstead on 3 September 1939 and during..Read More

On 19 September 1940, The Portman Clinic destroyed and Portman Street closed after being bombed during the Blitz.

Melanie Klein’s influence on British psychoanalysis had begun in the mid-1920s. British analysts who went to Berlin for analysis with Abraham or Sachs were the first to hear of her work with children . This included Edward Glover, his brother James and Ernest Jones. Jones was hesitant about her work..Read More

After the war a new Interim Medical Committee was elected by the whole of the staff with Wilfred Bion as Chair to take the Tavistock Clinic forward. Under Bion’s leadership ‘Operation Phoenix’ was put into action. Radical democratic processes were instituted in the way that the Clinic was run that..Read More

In 1946 John Bowlby joined the Tavistock Clinic. He was recruited from the army, where he had been one of the ‘invisible college’ under JR Rees command. Bowlby was appointed head of the Department for Children and Parents and Deputy Director of the Clinic.

The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR) germinated as an idea in the period immediately after World War 2. It came into being in 1946. JR Rees suggested that the TIHR should be created as a separate department but as the Clinic prepared to join the NHS it became clear..Read More

In 1948 the Family Discussion Bureau, a forerunner of today’s Tavistock Relationships, was founded by Enid Balint, with the help of Lily Pincus and Alison Lyons.

On 5 July 1948 the Portman joined the NHS and changed its name from the Psychopathic Clinic to the Portman Clinic. The  ISTD and the Portman became separate organisations, though they both remained at Bourdon Street and initially largely consisted of the same staff. The Portman Clinic came under the..Read More

On 20 January 1949, the Prime Minister, Clement Atlee, announced to Parliament that the King had approved the setting up of a Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, under the Chairmanship of Sir Ernest Gowers. The Commission, comprising 10 men and two women, had 63 meetings over four years. It took..Read More

During the late 40s and 1950s the Tavistock Clinic produced some of its most influential work. Bion initially continued to work on group dynamics, before his analysis under Melanie Klein led him back to working with individuals and developing concepts such as ‘containment’. Bowlby gradually developed ‘Attachment Theory’. This was..Read More

In August 1954 the Government set up the Wolfenden Committee, named after its chairman, John Wolfenden. Its report was published 5 September 1957 and recommended that homosexual acts between two consenting adults should no longer be a criminal offence. Edward Glover and Denis Carroll presented to the committee on behalf..Read More

In 1957, the Tavistock Institute launched its first full scale experiment in group relations in partnership with the University of Leicester. Leicester conferences continue to this day and are replicated all over the world, including several times a year within the Tavistock and Portman. The original concept of the Leicester Conference..Read More

In 1960 the Tavistock Clinic was visited by Enoch Powell, the then Health Minister, who was impressed by what he saw. The Tavistock Clinic provided a model of non-hospital based care and high quality services integrated multi-disciplinary teams. Not long after, the plans for the Tavistock Clinic’s new building were..Read More

In the Adult Department, David Malan’s detailed research into short-term therapy had started to show the effectiveness of brief therapy.

In 1965 the foundation stone of the new building at Belsize Lane was laid by JR Rees and on 4 May 1967 it was opened by Princess Marina. The Tavistock Clinic (including the new Adolescent Department, which merged with the Young People’s Consultation Centre in Hampstead), the TIHR (which included..Read More

After overseeing the move to the new premises JD Sutherland also resigned in 1968, to take up a teaching appointment at the University of Edinburgh. On 1 August 1968, Robert H. Gosling took charge of the Tavistock Clinic under the new title of Chairman of the Professional Committee after winning..Read More

Although Bowlby had retired from the Tavistock Clinic, this gave him more time to write and he went on to publish his definitional trilogy on attachment: Attachment (1969), Separation (1973) and Loss (1980). These were hugely influential and brought global attention to what the Tavistock Clinic was doing. Bowlby’s work on attachment remains absolutely foundational..Read More

In  1970 The Portman Clinic moved to its current home at 8 Fitzjohn’s Avenue. For more information on the Portman Clinic read Stanley Ruszczynski’s A brief introduction to the history of the Portman Clinic or The Portman Clinic: An historical sketch

Also in the early-1970s, Chris Dare and John Byng-Hall, who had both trained at the Tavistock, in child and adolescent psychiatry, began to develop Systemic Family Therapy. John Byng-Hall initially organised a Family Therapy Workshop in the Adolescent Department and a research group. They invited people from the US to..Read More

At the heart of Glasser’s (1979) concept of the core complex is a universal developmental step which deals with a child’s anxieties of abandonment and engulfment during early separation and individuation from their mother. Faced with this the individual either withdraws, experiencing tremendous isolation and feelings of abandonment, or reacts..Read More

In 1979, Robert Gosling retired from the leadership of the Tavistock Clinic, due to his increasing deafness. Alexis Brook took over as Chair of the Professional Committee. Alexis Brook had served under JR Rees in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1944 to 1947. He trained in psychiatry at the..Read More

In the mid-1980s the Child Guidance Training Centre (CGTC) , which had been sharing premises with the Tavistock Clinic at Belsize Lane, had its funding cut. The decision was taken to merge the CGTC with the Department for Children and Parents at the Tavistock Clinic and between 1984 and 1985..Read More

Alexis Brook stepped down in 1985 and Anton Obholzer took up the leadership of the Tavistock Clinic. A South-African by birth, with Austrian lineage, Anton Obholzer is the only Chief Executive to have worked in every department of the Tavistock Clinic. Working closely together, Rob Hale and Anton Obholzer began..Read More

Following the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987, two members of the Adult Department went to Dover to offer backup support. This was the first stage in the formation of the Unit for the Study of Trauma and its Aftermath. Eighteen months later a Trauma Unit led..Read More

In 1991, Estela Welldon drove the creation of the International Association of Forensic Psychology, and in 1992 international bi-annual symposia around forensic psychology were established.

At the same time as the Tavistock and Portman became an NHS trust, a national training contract was awarded to it. Margaret Rustin, who had become Dean in 1994, worked with UEL to develop five doctorate courses (which also functioned as research degrees). At one stage there were more than..Read More

In 1994, Anton Obholzer supported Jon Stokes to set up Tavistock Consulting. The aim was to bring together psychoanalysis and an understanding organisations from a systemic point of view to develop an individual coaching and consulting service for organisations and leaders. The original organisation was created by Jon Stokes with..Read More

In 2000 Laverne Antrobus joined the staff of Gloucester House, becoming the first black clinician at the Tavistock and Portman. Laverne originally trained at the Tavistock and Portman and since joining she has become a key member of the Children, Young Adults and Families Directorate. Outside of her role at..Read More

In 2001, a Centre for Mental Health in Nursing was set up jointly with Middlesex University to provide new training programmes in nursing.

In 2002, Anton Obholzer retired after playing a crucial role while at the helm of the Trust. He was succeeded by Nick Temple. Nick Temple had been a consultant at the Tavistock Clinic since 1989, with Margot Waddell. he had been a founder and joint editor of the Tavistock Clinic..Read More

As part of the national training contract with the NHS the Tavistock Clinic needed to evidence that they were changing the national pattern of training and set about developing regional centres. In 2002 The Northern School of Child Psychotherapy was established in Leeds and a course was developed in Birmingham.

In 2004, the Institute of Marital Studies expanded by taking over some of the functions of London Marriage Guidance and enlarging its range of services beyond marriage to include couples. In recognition of this, it changed its name to the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships (TCCR). It had already separated..Read More

In 2002, Health Secretary Alan Milburn introduced the idea of foundation trusts, with the first ten announced in 2004. Foundation trusts provided more managerial and financial freedom than NHS trusts. They represented a significant change in the way in which hospital services are managed and provided in the NHS. The..Read More

In 2007, Matthew Patrick succeeded Nick Temple, when he retired as Chief Executive. Matthew Patrick had trained as an adult psychiatrist at the Maudsley and Bethlem Royal Hospitals and in psychotherapy in the adult department at the Tavistock. For many years he combined clinical work and developmental research at UCL...Read More

In 2009, following further expansion, the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationship moved to new premises in central London and expanded to a second site in Liverpool Street.

Between 2013 and 2020 the Family Nurse Partnership National Unit joined the Tavistock and Portman, leading the delivery of a national home visiting programme for first time mums.  In the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) programme, specially trained family nurses visit young mums regularly at home, from early in pregnancy until..Read More

Paul Jenkins was appointed as the Chief Executive of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in December 2013.

Following on from the work of the Trust’s CAMHS and MALT (Multi Agency Liaison Team) teams, we refined our systemic approach to emotional well-being services for young people and linked up with the Anna Freud Centre to develop a whole system approach that became the THRIVE model, launched in 2014...Read More