The Tavistock Model

Martha Harris (1919-1987) read English at University College London and then Psychology at Oxford. She taught in a Froebel Teacher Training College and was trained as a Psychologist at Guys Hospital, as a Child Psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, where she was for many years responsible for the child psychotherapy training in the department of Children and Families, and as a Psychoanalyst at the British Institute of Psychoanalysis. Together with her first husband Roland Harris (a teacher) she started a pioneering schools counselling service. With her second husband Donald Meltzer she wrote a psychoanalytical model of The Child in the Family in the Community for multidisciplinary use in schools and therapeutic units. Esther Bick was born in Poland. She found her way to Switzerland during the Second World War, where she did her Ph.D. under Charlotte Buhler before moving to England to train as a psycho-analyst. She worked closely with Melanie Klein and initiated the Child Psychotherapy Training at the Tavistock Clinic which Martha Harris continued to nurture following her retirement.