Thomas Forrest Main (1911–1990)

Tom Main, who died on 29 May 1990, was best known world-wide as the creator of the therapeutic community at the Cassel Hospital rather than as a psychoanalyst. No paper of his appeared in the International Journal or Review of Psycho-Analysis. Yet the many facets of his life's work came under the strong influence of his psychoanalytical knowledge and convictions and up to his death he treated a number of patients in his private psychoanalytical practice.1

He was born on 25 February 1911 in Johannesburg. His father, a ship's carpenter, had emigrated there from Tyneside and had become a mine manager by the time Tom was born. He had an elder sister and another three years younger. In 1914 the three children returned with their mother to Tyneside, while Tom's father joined the South African army at the outbreak of the First World War. The prosperity they had enjoyed in South Africa disappeared and the family lived in some poverty, Tom being boarded out with aunts some of the time. After the war his father, having been disabled in the war, returned to Tyneside and another son was born, who died tragically of pneumonia when 14 years old.

Tom won a scholarship to the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was taught by Michael Roberts, a recognized poet of the time. Tom, opines his friend, Colin Legum, would have made an ideal Poet Laureate. He used to write poems to mark the birthdays of his many children, grandchildren, and godchildren. However, all the school prizes he won were taken in the form of books of music, Tom being devoted to classical music. He was an outstanding Rugby football player. At the age of 16 he won a scholarship to the Medical College of the University of Durham, where he met his future wife, Agnes Mary (Molly) McHaffie. They married on 27 February 1937. Tom graduated with Honours in 1932, obtaining his M.D. in 1934. He was greatly influenced by the paediatrician, James Spence, and he had read The Interpretation of Dreams when h