Ian Dishart Suttie (1889-1935) was a Scottish psychiatrist perhaps best known for his writings on the
taboo
A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
in families on expressing
tenderness.
His influential book ''The Origins of Love and Hate'' was posthumously published in 1935.
Life and career
The third son of a Glasgow medical doctor, Suttie took his medical degree there before joining the staff of the
Glasgow Royal Asylum, where he married his wife (and future co-author) Dr. Jane Robertson. He continued to work in Scotland until 1928, when he moved south to join the
Tavistock Clinic
The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health trust based in north London. The Trust specialises in talking therapies. The education and training department caters for 2,000 students a year from the United Kin ...
.
Suttie had served with the RAMC in Mesopotamia in 1918, where he became interested in the
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
of the mother child bond – an interest confirmed by the influence of
Sandor Ferenczi. His writings reveal an ongoing debate with
Freud
Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in t ...
– whose concept of the
death drive
In classical psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud, the death drive () is the Drive theory, drive toward destruction in the sense of breaking down complex phenomena into their constituent parts or bringing life back to its inanimate 'dead' state, often ...
he rejected as unscientific – over the importance of companionship as against sex in the mother-child relationship: a theme (tinged with Christian thinking) which was to influence the thinking of
W. R. D. Fairbairn, and anticipate the work of
D. W. Winnicott and
John Bowlby
Edward John Mostyn Bowlby (; 26 February 1907 – 2 September 1990) was a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attachment theory. A ''Review of General Psychology'' ...
. He developed the theme in a series of papers (with his wife) published between 1922 and 1931, which he would subsequently draw upon for his (posthumous) book of 1935.
Criticism
Continental critics see Suttie's work as reflecting a very British complacency about sexuality, and a downplaying of its problematics.
[Celia Harding, ''Sexuality'' (2001) p. 65-6]
Work
* Suttie, I. D. (1988). ''The Origins of Love and Hate''. London: Free Association Books.
Bibliography in pages xli-xlii.
See also
References
External links
Ian Suttie's matriarchy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suttie, Ian Dishart
1889 births
1935 deaths
British psychoanalysts
Scottish psychiatrists