Edward Glover, John Bowlby, psychiatry, Bion, and the War Office Selection Boards—towards a context for the emergence of group analysis

Abstract

This paper is a reflection on the context from which group analysis emerged in Britain during the Second World War. Edward Glover’s objections to the work of army psychiatry in a radio broadcast in November 1943, and the difficult collaboration between the War Office and psychiatrists as they sought to develop officer selection and training procedures, influenced developments in psychoanalysis, including the emergence of group analysis. It considers the response of the British Psychoanalytical Society whose members were engaged in army psychiatry work alongside colleagues from the Tavistock Clinic. Bion’s and Rickman’s collaboration and the experiments at Northfield were an outcome. The abrupt ending of the first Northfield experiment, and the development of psychiatry more broadly, prompted serious questioning within the Society about its isolationalist policies. The Society’s move to develop its training role, and to participate in post war health, mental health and welfare services was a result. Not only did it ensure the Society’s survival, but enhanced the emergence of group analysis as a discipline within the psychoanalytic project.

Response to ‘Glover, Bowlby, psychiatry, Bion and the War Office Selection Boards’ by Christine Vickers

“…Exploring the history of group therapies both offers new perspectives and an understanding of the social trajectory in which we are embedded, as well as an opportunity to review preconceptions about the actors. In responding to Christine Vickers’ glimpse into our controversial past (Vickers, 2023) I will take up two issues, the neglected role of Edward Glover at the British Psycho-Analytical Society and the uncertainties around the development of group practice in the British Army.…”

“…How did actions based on group relations become so acceptable in the military? Whilst war time ‘enables innovation and experimentation’, there is still the question of which innovations become significant (Vickers, 2023: 14). From our perspective it seems almost inevitable, but there were no signs of this at the beginning of the conflict.…”

“…Bion’s comments, mentioned above, were buried in a clinical text. As Vickers points our War Office administrators were more concerned with the quantities of men rather than quality and the British Psychoanalytic Society had little to offer (Vickers, 2023: 11). Bion’s first attempts to introduce a democratic system of the men putting forward those amongst them as officers was to solve the quantity problem, albeit the solution was democratic and group based.…”