Obituaries

(5 November 1913 - 26 September 2000)

Beth Miller died in hospital on 26 th September 2000, having been severely disabled by a stroke which occurred in the previous May. She was born in Scotland on 5 th November 1913, before the first World War and herself served in the WAAF behind the front line of the Battle of Britain in 1940. There followed marriage and the births of Alison, her daughter and her son, Andrew. Her family was extremely important to her and she was very proud of her five grandsons.

Beth came into analysis and then trained with the SAP. She was devoted to the Society, but this did not blind her to its conflicts. She worked for it in various roles including that of Honorary Secretary and also Chair of the Professional Committee. Sadly her increasingly profound deafness prevented her from continuing to serve in office and also from freely enjoying the clinical meetings. As an analyst she worked to facilitate individuation. She encouraged her patients and her friends to find the means of self expression through the arts, especially poetry and painting.

Beth was herself a poet, writing intensely felt lines, a painter and a sculptor of small and beautiful things. She made and illustrated books of poems, but her concern about privacy and perhaps her under-valuing of her talent and intellect prevented her from publishing these and also her clinical ideas.

Beth was an original, always herself. Sometimes what she said seemed eccentric. She expressed her own authentic vision regardless of fashion or theory. If she sensed complacency or superficiality she would say something outrageous to stir us up. There were times of depression and grief that she fought to overcome. In later years she often spoke of death, wondering at the mystery of the journey that we all must make alone. Occasionally she said that she had lived too long and then that there is so much more to do and to experience, her love of life undiminished.

She is greatly missed by her family and