You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Northfield was referred to in tones of awe when one joined Group Relations work of the Tavistock Institute in the mid sixties, but there was never any detailed discussion, no flesh to the bones of the story. It was a mystery. Now, Tom Harrison has written of the myth and given it a substance that makes it more exciting than the myth itself. Yet, the myth has inspired much of the British tradition of group relations, giving it a rigour that is lacking in comparable cultures. At the same time, it all occurred in a military hospital during the last World War. That was where the seed corn was planted, which has brought a bountiful crop.
The Northfield experiments gave rise to two distinct strands of thought for dealing with soldiers who had become mental casualties of the war. Later, there were other subsequent inspiring offshoots, such as the Army Bureau of Current Affairs, the Civil Resettlement Units and Maxwell Jones' therapeutic communities. Wilfred Bion, John Rickman and their associates and Sigmund Foulkes and his followers initiated the original thinking. These two strands remain to this day with the Tavistock Institute representing one camp and the Institute of Group Analysis in the other. Whereas once they were seen as antagonistic now they are seen as being complementary and there is much more a meeting of minds than hitherto, although still guarded.
The different strands of thinking are stated on p. 265 where Harrison identifies the different perspectives of the protagonists. For Foulkes, the ideal aim was “individual treatment evolving to achieve the perfect group”. In his thinking the army was an obstacle and the individual was considered more important than humanity. For Bion and Rickman, on the other hand, “the overall task was to win the war by providing soldiers in a variety of roles” (p. 265). Harrison refers to Saint-Exupery and his dilemma, who wrote “I shall be fighting for Man over the