ABSTRACT
The Portman Clinic began in 1931 as the Psychopathic Clinic and was the clinical arm of the Institute for the Scientific Treatment of Delinquency, later to be called The Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency (ISTD) (Glover, 1960; Dicks, 1970). The Institute was founded by a small group of people impelled by the research of Dr Grace Pailthorpe, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, who had worked as a doctor in the trenches during the First World War. After the war she worked in Birmingham and Holloway Prisons. She became interested in the personality of women prisoners and wrote Studies in the Psychology of Delinquency (Pailthorpe, 1932). Her approach and her research attracted likeminded psychoanalysts including Edward Glover and Kate Friedlander, and their shared interests and, more importantly, Edward Glover’s impetus and dedication, founded the Institute and with it the idea of developing a Clinic. Glover was already developing the understanding of sexual perversions, criminality, and addictions, and had also been Director of the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis.
