ABSTRACT
The Tavistock Clinic was one of the first out-patient clinics in Great Britain to provide systematic major psychotherapy on the basis of concepts inspired by psychoanalytic theory for out-patients suffering from psychoneurosis and allied disorders who were unable to afford private fees. The focus that is characteristic of the Tavistock is the emphasis on the until then ignored or misinterpreted sphere of the neuroses and personality disorders now illuminated by the 'New Psychology' originating in Vienna and Zurich. The premises of the Tavistock Clinic were, fortunately, together with most of its clinical records and a large part of its library evacuated to temporary wartime premises in Hamp-stead, where a core staff of those not mobilized for the armed services carried on an uninterrupted service. Administered for some seven years by the Central Middlesex Group Hospital Management Committee of the North-west Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board, it changed in 1956 to the Paddington Group Hospital Management Committee for geographical and administrative reasons.
