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I understand from a little book by Dr. Burbury and her co-workers (Burbury et al., 1945) that in 1920 the Tavistock Clinic was started by Dr. Crichton Miller, but that it was concerned at that time mainly with the functional disorders of adults. Not until 1927 did the Jewish Health Organisation start the first, and subsequently famous, East London Child Guidance Clinic under the direction of Dr. Emanuel Miller. At this point the Commonwealth Fund of America stepped in, and during the next year the London Child Guidance Clinic was also established, under the direction of Dr. William Moodie, who, together with certain colleagues, had the opportunity of studying the work in the United States of America. This Clinic was set up in the Canonbury district of London “after a careful study of the figures for juvenile crime in the various London areas” (Burbury et al., 1945, p. 4), and it became the main centre for the training of most of the workers practicing in the United Kingdom in the next decade or so. During this period additional clinics were established in six or seven of the major towns in England and Scotland.
Dr. Margaret Lowenfeld was another pioneer; she had established what was to become the Institute of Child Psychology in 1928, and her training course in child psychotherapy in 1933. She was a very able woman, with her own particular approach.
My first contact with child guidance was in the 1930's, when Charlotte Buhler came to England from Vienna and set up an Institute. I, and indeed several of my colleagues at the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic, trained and worked there for some years. In spite of the fact that Charlotte Buhler denied the existence of the unconscious, she was one of the most interesting and careful observers of child development from whom it has been my good fortune to learn. Through her work, I was introduced to much that I came later to understand from another angle. For instance Charlotte Buhler described in detail what she called “work ma