A book to accompany a successful television series often fails to capture the spirit of the original, and very rarely transcends the visual medium. I enjoyed the television series, which largely managed to get across psychodynamic concepts in an accessible way. I was left, however, with an impression that the television director had chosen charismatic figures and had brought together the ‘plot’ in each episode but left viewers still uncertain of what the Tavistock as an institution stands for.
This book is far more than a book to support the television series: it is a rich and resonant account of the practice and theory underlying psychoanalytic approaches to therapy. That would be enough to earn a recommendation for libraries, but the book goes well beyond an account of psychoanalytic practice. It takes a life-cycle view and cleverly weaves in issues of groups, families and institutions that have been central to the work of the Tavistock.
The style is a compelling mix of clinical and observational anecdotes, linked to clear expositions of some complex theoretical ideas. These are salted with humour and some excellent plate photographs. Black and white photographic plates might not have been allowed if this had been published directly by the BBC, but, the relatively simple technology is extremely powerful in conveying emotional meaning. For example, there are stills from the Robertsons' cine-film of Laura adjacent to an image of the Madonna and child, to show the physicality of infant desire, and a further image of two youths and a boy looking at the camera with ‘frozen watchfulness’. These images add poignancy to the text that is already saturated with meaning.
Although I enjoyed the book greatly, the authors are also clear in setting out a position that can be contested. For example, the excellent chapters covering childhood make assumptions about the development of cognition and memory that do not sit easily with modern developmental psychology. On the other hand, the book tackles the very difficult theme of childhood sexuality and aggression in a way that presents Melanie Klein in an accessible way.
I had expected to review a book that gave an interesting set of programme notes to the television series. The book does indeed complement the series in this way, but goes far beyond that. The Tavistock is a diverse institution, and the editor has done something of real value in this synthesis. In the chapter ‘What causes the mind?’ there is a discussion of Proust who “understood that memory and imagination have to be sought actively, too, by mental effort”. This book is evidence of the effort to develop a style of psychoanalytic thinking that characterises the Tavistock.
I would recommend the book to a medical student struggling to understand family reaction to the death of an infant, to a psychiatric trainee who is curious about psychoanalysis, to a friend making sense of a hostile work environment and to seasoned colleagues who knew the theory but would welcome the clinical depth. The book could be read sequentially to give a chronological and developmental overview, linked to particular episodes of the television series, used as a basis for a reading seminar or dipped into and enjoyed.
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