A Tribute to Frances Tustin

Frances Tustin died on 11 November 1994, at the age of 81. Someone said to me during her last illness, ‘I never had supervision from her, but she's always been a presence in my life.’ Those who came in contact with her found that the way they saw their work, and indeed their life, was lastingly transformed. Thinking of her, I am reminded of lines from Jon Stallworthy's poem ‘Credits’:

She was born Frances Vickers in Darlington on 15 October 1913. Her father taught at primary school and was a lay preacher; her mother was a deaconess. Her early life is documented in Sheila Spensley's book on her work, the second book in the Routledge series on Makers of Modern Psychotherapy (Spensley, 1995); readers of this journal will recall Maria Pozzi's evocative interview (Pozzi, 1991). Frances was an only child whose life was suddenly and completely changed when her mother informed her that they were leaving her father. She and her mother spent the following years moving from one place to another. Before her parents’ separation she had been keenly interested in biology, which she hoped to read at university. Both parents transmitted to her the belief that the things that mattered were not necessarily those that the world thought important. I remember her talking about an autistic child who was using a particular talent in order to get a fuss made of him. ‘He must think that grown-ups are all mad,’ she said, ‘to be taking these monkey-tricks seriously instead of realizing what really matters.’

She trained as a teacher, and wrote her first book, A Group of Juniors, on latency children. Her interest in groups took her to a conference