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Morris Nitsun is well known as a consultant psychologist, psychotherapist and group analyst; his publications include the seminal work The Anti-Group, published in 1996, The Group as an Object of Desire and Beyond the Anti-Group . Perhaps less well known is that throughout his career as a psychologist Nitsun has also been a painter, exhibiting and selling his work to an enthusiastic audience. A Psychotherapist Paints is an account of Nitsun's life as an artist. Lavishly illustrated, the book tells the story of an extraordinarily creative episode that was generated by the lockdown of COVID-19. It begins at a point just before lockdown in 2020, continues into 202i, culminating in the book's completion and publication in 2022. This is also an account of a unique approach to group work.
The first section of the book is autobiographical, setting the scene and revealing the life-long pull between Nitsun's career as a psychologist and his life as an artist. The youngest of three children, Nitsun was born in apartheid South Africa in 1943 to a Jewish family haunted by the history of murder and exile, and in the shadow of World War II. His talent for art was recognized early on, but this was not considered a serious career for a young man. This, alongside growing up gay in an environment hostile to any form of difference,
caused the young Nitsun to choose to study psychology rather than art. He completed his studies in Johannesburg and arrived in London in 1968 to take up a post as a clinical psychologist. However, before leaving South Africa he entered an art competition and won a prestigious award; the prize being a year of sponsored art studies abroad. In London he was offered a place to study at the Royal College of Art which, in 1968, was a hive of excitement and revolution. Nitsun again faced a choice between a life in art or career as a psychologist; he chose the path of clinical psychology, turning down the opportunity to study at the RCA. Thus began a hugely succ