ABSTRACT
Owing to wartime bombardment of London, in summer 1940, the Maudsley Hospital was closed and a neurological unit was moved to a private school at Mill Hill, nine miles northwest of central London. Eric L. Trist’s early assignments came from the National Head Injury Committee and his immediate supervisor, Dr. Aubrey J. Lewis, suspected the repercussions of such injury could be identified psychologically before they were found neurologically. In the Royal Army Military Corps, psychiatrists from the Tavistock Clinic were impressed with Trist’s clinical research work and asked him to join them. Because there were too few psychiatrists, the Boards could not be fully staffed. Commissioned psychologists like Trist were appointed to interview the less problematic cases. Trist recalled that, between April and November 1942, the pace of work had been frenetic. On the staff were educators and psychologists who would later become notable clinicians and psychoanalysts, and among them was Harold Bridger, later a close friend and colleague.
