Spent the day here at the Archive with Ruth Crocket, Richard Crocket's daughter. (Who was Richard Crocket? Founding Director of the Ingrebourne Centre therapeutic community, and founding member of the Association of Therapeutic Communities? See brief biographical article). Going through trunks of material which came out of the house in Oxford after Richard died, and stored here until Ruth had had a chance to go through and set aside material not intended for deposit. Not so much of the latter, as it turns out, at least on first viewing; but while going through objects and manuscripts some interesting and exciting things emerge. A plan for a cottage sharing scheme which he realised later is sketched out as early as 1960, a working out of psychotherapeutic community processes in an everyday environment. Tuning forks and a variety of knee hammers from his neurological testing days. A reconnection letter from Bonn, immediately after the Second World War, illustrating in one life the immense destructiveness of the Nazi regime on German citizens who did not wholeheartedly support it. Material on his visits to Germany before the war, as a boy. Personal and family correspondence, pre-war and post. Research material from his time as tutor in psychiatry at the University of Leeds, 1950-1954. Drawings and paintings. Published and unpublished writing. An immense amount of material, now waiting to be catalogued.

Among the manuscripts there is a four page sketch that begins:

"On the use of the word 'enemy'

Sutherland [this will be his friend and colleague Jock Sutherland, with whom he trained before the war] remarked on Wednesday that the question 'What would your worst enemy say about you if asked?', included in that battery of tests given to officer candidates, elicted the reply "I have no enemies" in a moderate proportion of cases. Miller has therefore modified his question to 'What would a severe critic say about you.' But Bion concluded that the question ought to be left unaltered as, he said, a man without enemies was immature and not qualified for officer status.

It is a matter involving a delicate nuance of meaning..."



The whole of the manuscript is reproduced with Ruth's permission in pdf format here