Talk:Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust

John Rawlings Rees was a doctor of the original staff of the Tavistock Clinic, became deputy-director in 1926, and full-director in 1933. Became a consulting psychiatrist to the British Army in 1938. Medical doctor for Rudolf Hess since 1941. Founding president of the World Federation for Mental Health since 1948, which acts as a consultant to the United Nations. Died in 1969. According to an e-mail reply to enquiries of the present Tavistock and Portman Trust

Dr J R Rees [John Rawlings Rees] took over as Medical Director after ten years, in 1933. He later played an important role as director of military psychiatry in the Second World War and many new ideas of group psychotherapy and institutional understanding came from the work of army psychiatrists, which were influential in the Clinic after the War. He was never given a knighthood. From another e-mail reply from the trust. See [1]

This is part of a crackpot conspiracy theory. The cite is to a whacko personal website. It all tracks back to Lyndon LaRouche. Please stop trying to insert this conspiracist material into Wikipedia.--Cberlet 01:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

What! I referred to information given by the Tavistock Trust, and written by Rees. I also refer to a biography of Kurt Lewis which confirms links with Tavistock and Rees. The involvement of Rees with Hess is well documented in the diaries he left from 1941 to 1945 and the Nuremeburg trial. You are obsessed with LaRouche, who I have never mentioned or quoted. Once again I ask that you only modify what I wrote as required by rules, do not wipe out my work. You should not remove a statement backed by the citation of a book by a reputable publisher written by a student of Kurt Lewis long ago - that can by no stretch of the imagination be attributed to a LaRouche conspiracy. --86.144.101.232 08:42, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It does see to me that the article you linked to refered to Rees as part of the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, which is a different organisation. Can you provide any references [page numbe4rs, ISBNs, quotes?] --Duncan 11:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The official site of the Tavistock and Portland trust says that the Tavistock Clinic was founded in 1920. Much confusion has been caused to many people over the years by the various name changes. According to the official site, the 'clinic' carried out both clinical and consultancy work until 1948 'when 'it' became part of the new national health service.' In fact, I deduce that the new 'clinic' is a different entity from the original one, in that it only carries forward the clinical side, leaving behind the other activities under the name institute. So Rees might today be assumed to have been with the 'institute' doing research and consultancy, but of course there was no 'institute' when Rees began, as it all came under the heading of clinic. If you are suggesting that there might have been a different Rees, then this is of course very unlikely, since the man we are talking about is undoubtedly John Rawlings Rees, which seems a unique name. If you are suggesting that he did not work at the Tavistock Clinic, then this is not true, as the official site says that he did. There have been many other titles, such as Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (now simply Tavistock Institute according to the official site), and the Tavistock centre for couple relationships (formerly Tavistock Marrital Studies Institute (founded 1948 as the Tavistock Family Discussions Bureau), but they are undoubtably just divisional names given at various times to different activities under the same Tavistock organisation (originally Tavistock Clinic). I think confusion arises because when articles refer to the 'parent body' now they often refer the the 'Institute', and the clinic is just the NHS side of Tavistock activities. Originally it was the other way round, as there was only the 'clinic', out of which came the 'institute'. It's all the same Tavistock fundamentally, but strictly Rees was with the clinic. An official job description for Director, 'The Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology', talks of the 'Tavistock tradition', and goes on to say that the 'centre for couple realationships' is an operating unit of the 'Institute for medical psychology' [2]. It may be that the article simply muddled the names, using the most relevant present day one. --86.135.218.31 01:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Material removed and now under condideration here:

A controversial figure in the history of the original Tavistock Clinic was John Rawlings Rees, who has been accused by various commentators of setting up a world-wide network to undermine the values of Western civilisation [3]. According to information from the current Tavistock and NHS Trust [4], John Rawlings Rees was a doctor of the original staff of the Tavistock Clinic, became deputy-director in 1926, and full-director in 1933. He became a consulting psychiatrist to the British Army in 1938, medical doctor for Rudolf Hess since 1941 and founding president of the World Federation for Mental Health since 1948, which acts as a consultant to the United Nations. He played an important role as director of military psychiatry in the Second World War and many new ideas of group psychotherapy and institutional understanding came from the work of army psychiatrists, which were influential in the Clinic after the War. He died in 1969. The following quotes from Rees appear to confirm some of the allegations against him.

"We can therefore justifiably stress our particular point of view with regard to the proper development of the human psyche, even though our knowledge be incomplete. We must aim to make it permeate every educational activity in our national life…. We have made a useful attack upon a number of professions. The two easiest of them naturally are the teaching profession and the Church: the two most difficult are law and medicine." - Quoted from "Mental Health", June 18, 1940 [5].

"Public life, politics and industry should all of them be within our sphere of influence…. If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people I think we must imitate the Totalitarians and organize some kind of fifth column activity! If better ideas on mental health are to progress and spread we, as the salesmen, must lose our identity… Let us all, therefore, very secretly be ‘fifth columnists.’" - Quoted from "Strategic Planning for Mental Health". "Mental Health 1", no. 4, October 1940, pages 103-4) [6].

Rees has been linked to the Frankfurt school of Cultural Marxism via Kurt Lewin. According to a biography of Kurt Lewin written by Alfred J Marrow, "Kurt Lewin was the key link in the Frankfurt School/Tavistock migration to America."