Dr Arthur Geoffrey Thompson (1905–1976)

Arthur Geoffrey Thompson, who died suddenly on 26 October 1976, was born of Quaker stock in Co. Wexford on 6 August 1905. After a Quaker preparatory school in Waterford he went to Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, in Ulster. He qualified in medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1928. (His brother Alan, a year younger, pursued the same course one year behind him, stayed in Dublin and became Senior Physician at Richmond Hospital, Professor of Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons and President of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 1967; he died in 1974.) After qualification Geoffrey became Rockefeller Research Fellow in biochemistry, working in London (the Brompton and Barts) and in Paris. He returned to Dublin in 1930, became Physician at Bagot St Hospital; and his successful career made him the youngest (until then) Member of the Association of Physicians and FRCP(I).

In 1934 he renounced his brilliant prospects in Ireland and moved to London in order to train in psychoanalysis, holding psychiatric appointments at Bethlem and Maudsley Hospitals. Next year he began his career at The Tavistock Clinic under J. R. Rees. H. V. Dicks was a colleague there.

In the war he became a Major in the RAMC and worked for the WOSB. Then in 1946 he resumed psychiatric practice both privately and at the Tavistock, becoming a National Health Service employee at its inception. He stayed at the Tavistock Clinic till his retirement in 1970 and continued till his death to serve the Institute of Marital Studies, housed in the same building. He presided at the weekly clinical meetings of the IMS for 20 years and thereby exerted a persuasive influence on numerous staff. Literally hundreds of probation officers who took the annual course run by the IMS in conjunction with the Home Office were his pupils. Along with J. D. Sutherland and the Balints he taught junior colleagues how to recognize and facilitate the 'interactive processes' both within individuals and betw