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Forensic psychiatry and psychotherapy lost a major voice and thinker in July 2016 when Professor Gill McGauley died suddenly and unexpectedly, only three weeks after she had been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus. This was a cruel and devastating loss; and especially painful because her family, friends and colleagues in the field of forensic psychotherapy had rejoiced with her in May when she gave her inaugural address as Professor of Medical Education and Forensic Psychotherapy at St George’s Hospital, London.
These types of loss are hard to articulate, or make sense of: there is a terrible irony here that Gill herself would be the best person to help us think about it. As many will know, Gill had made a particular study of attachment theory as it applied to forensic psychiatry, and had carried out important research into the childhood histories and attachment representations of violent offenders with severe personality disorders. Together with Luisa Avellan, she helped us to think about how a disorganized attachment system might have devastating effects on the capacity to be pro-social and to mentalize distress in adulthood. She was a member of an active group at Broadmoor Hospital, which sought to explore how her research, and that of Bateman and Fonagy (2008), Bateman, O’Connell, Lorenzini, Gardner, and Fonagy (2016) could be applied to the development of therapeutic interventions for men and women who were not only high risk offenders, but also suffered mental illness and personality disorder.
Gill was kind and funny and clever; wearing her learning lightly, and also managing to handle with grace and patience the distressing material we work with everyday as forensic psychotherapists. She would be the first to say that she was supported in this work by her family’s love and care, and also by her time as a patient in psychoanalysis. The psychoanalytic frame of reference helped her maintain that ‘third position’ that is crucial to forensic work, both in indiv