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I am honoured to be asked to speak to you about Dr. James Davie, a former member of the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society and an honorary member of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society. Jim died in Glasgow at the age of eighty-seven.
Jim was born, raised, and educated in Glasgow and attended medical school at Glasgow University. He started his psychiatric training at Southern University. When he became interested in psychoanalysis, he moved to London to train as a psychoanalyst at the British Institute. He was supervised by Anna Freud, whom he always referred to as “Miss Freud.” His theoretical outlook was distinctly Freudian, although he had great respect for some members of the “Middle Group,” particularly Donald Winnicott. The Institute of Psychoanalysis at that time was fraught with conflict between the Freudians and the Kleinians. He returned to Glasgow on completion of training and became a consultant at Gartnavel Royal. Jim came to Toronto on the invitation of the Dr. Robin Hunter and worked in the Outpatient Department of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry (now the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health), where he had a psychoanalytic practice and supervised residents in psychotherapy.
Jim participated in the life of the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society through teaching and participation on committees, particularly those that selected applicants for analytic training and evaluated candidates for training analysts. I believe his greatest contribution was through the promulgation of psychoanalytic ideas to residents in psychiatry.
I met Jim in 1978 as I was starting my residency in psychiatry. I had been introduced by a friend when we bumped into him on the street; she at the time was his resident. Jim was the first psychoanalyst that I ever met. Both Jim and I, at the time, smoked and drank lots of coffee, and I'd run