Isabel Menzies Lyth born Isabel Edgar Punton (1917–2008) was a British psychoanalyst in the
Kleinian tradition, known for her work on unconscious mechanisms in institutional settings.
Life
Born and raised in Scotland, Her mother was Sarah Curran (born Ness) and her father was the Revd Hugh Menzies. Menzies went to
Madras College
Madras College, often referred to as Madras, is a Scottish comprehensive secondary school located in St Andrews, Fife. It educates over 1,400 pupils aged between 11 and 18 and was founded in 1833 by the Rev. Dr Andrew Bell.
History
Madras ...
with a scholarship and she graduated with a double first in economics and experimental psychology at
St Andrews
St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fou ...
in 1939, and became a lecturer there from 1939-45.
Thanks to
Eric Trist
Eric Lansdown Trist (11 September 1909 – 4 June 1993) was an English scientist and leading figure in the field of organizational development (OD). He was one of the founders of the Tavistock Institute for Social Research in London.
Biography ...
, during the war she became involved with the group around
W. R. Bion
Wilfred Ruprecht Bion DSO (; 8 September 1897 – 8 November 1979) was an influential English psychoanalyst, who became president of the British Psychoanalytical Society from 1962 to 1965.
Early life and military service
Bion was born in Ma ...
studying social dynamics in officer training at the
War Office Selection Boards
War Office Selection Boards, or WOSBs, (pronounced Wosbees) were a scheme devised by British Army psychiatrists during World War II to select potential officers for the British Army. They replaced an earlier method, the Command Interview Board, an ...
and in the relationships of prisoners of war at
Civil Resettlement Units. Menzies then moved to London to join them at the
Tavistock Institute
The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations is a British not-for-profit organisation that applies social science to contemporary issues and problems. It was initiated in 1946, when it developed from the Tavistock Clinic, and was formally establ ...
; qualified as a psychoanalyst in 1954; and underwent a second training analysis with Bion himself.
She married the analyst Oliver Lyth on 23 May 1975, in Hampstead. He died in 1981.
[
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Theoretical contributions
Building on the work on social fantasy systems of Elliott Jaques, Menzies produced in 1959 a classic study of hospital systems as defences against the anxieties raised by caring for people in life and death situations. By establishing a rigid hierarchy, fixed psychological roles and a routinisation of work, the hospital was able to diffuse responsibility and anxiety from the individual nurse to the system as a whole. That benefit came, however, at a cost: the use of the primitive defences of splitting
Splitting may refer to:
* Splitting (psychology)
* Lumpers and splitters, in classification or taxonomy
* Wood splitting
* Tongue splitting
* Splitting, railway operation
Mathematics
* Heegaard splitting
* Splitting field
* Splitting principle
* ...
, denial and projection
Projection, projections or projective may refer to:
Physics
* Projection (physics), the action/process of light, heat, or sound reflecting from a surface to another in a different direction
* The display of images by a projector
Optics, graphic ...
prevented more mature forms of coping with anxiety to emerge, and thus stifled individual growth.
Menzies (Lyth) continued to explore the role of institutions in containing anxiety throughout her life, but conceded that, despite her wide theoretical acclaim, in practice institutional structures remained in large part impervious to psychoanalytic modification.
Selected writings
*____'The Functioning of Social Systems as a Defence Against Anxiety' ''Human Relations'' 13 (1959) 95-121
*____''Containing Anxiety in Institutions: Selected Essays''. London: Free Association Books, 1988.
See also
References
External links
Isabel Menzies Lyth
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyth, Isabel Menzies
1917 births
2008 deaths
British psychoanalysts
Freudian psychology
History of mental health in the United Kingdom
British women psychologists