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Reprinted from
N.A.M.H. Newsletter, Autumn 1955
IN
MEMORIAM
Mrs. Elizabeth Norman, M.A.
The untimely death of Mrs.
Norman, for the past 25 years Senior Psychologist in the
Department of Psychological Medicine, Guy's Hospital, which took
place in August after a very short illness, has deprived the N.A.M.H.
of a valued friend and helper. For many years she served on
our Committee on Psychologists and her Department at Guy's
regularly received a student for training under her. In addition
she lectured at
39 Queen Anne Street
to psychological students.
From Ruth Thomas, an old friend and colleague, we have received
the following tribute which we are glad to publish here :—
The complete unexpectedness of Mrs. Norman's illness and death
at the height of an outstanding career emphasises with tragic
suddenness, her loss to the work of mental health, affecting the
diverse range of her activities in clinical work, and in
psychological training and research. Already in 1929, while
still completing her training, she gravitated towards Guy's as a
voluntary worker, attracted without doubt by the considerable
contact with human experiences and problems to be found in that
large teaching hospital. Her devotion to Guy's was in many ways
indistinguishable from her absorption in human beings, which her
brilliant intelligence and shrewd practical sense and
scholarship enabled her to canalise in the contribution she made
to the growth of its psychological services. Her serious
professional work commenced with the inception of its child
guidance clinic which she helped to found.
She did both group and
individual therapy, and at her instigation, the department
became an important centre for the training of psychologists,
who can scarcely ever have been uninfluenced by her intellectual
integrity and high seriousness. These qualities stand out in her
published researches, notably on infant speech and on the
problems of psychotic children. If her preoccupation with the
solution of immediate clinical and teaching problems had allowed
for it, they might have been much more extensive— she left an
amount of planned but unfinished work. Inevitably with her the
personal and human took precedence over the academic and. this
in spite of her considerable academic background and gift for
a high quality of thought. If some part of her personal
ambitions were curtailed as a result, there was no sign that she
was aware of anything but the immense satisfaction of her job.
She was a Foundation member of the Association of Child
Psychotherapists (non-medical), and its first chairman, and a
member of its Training Council. She was also a member of the
Subcommittee on Selection and Training of Psychologists. It was
on these Committees that her care for the future of mental
health work became most widely apparent. Experience and
intellectual clarity, combined with an almost aesthetic
precision of expression not infrequently put her in a position
to turn a ravelled argument into a constructive statement of
policy, unquestionably also because it was impossible to doubt
that she was without personal bias. Her detachment made her
easily the most likeable person in any group and her wisdom and
ability easily the most sought out. In her many positions she
will not easily be replaced and the calibre of her thinking will
influence for a very long time those who were privileged to work
with her.
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