Dr Derry Macdiarmid

Published on Friday 29 September 2006 00:50

Born: 22 August, 1928, in Brechin.

Died: 22 September, 2006, in London, aged 78.

DERRY Macdiarmid enjoyed many lives: painter, perpetual student (his description), medical doctor (briefly), NHS psychiatrist and teacher, and psychotherapist. He changed for the better hundreds of personal stories of real people throughout his long professional practice.

It's said that good therapists are born and not made. This was so of Dr Duncan Macdiarmid, (Derry to family, friends, colleagues, students and patients.) Many consider him to have become one of the most original and talented analysts of recent times. His enduring curiosity about human behaviour, matched by an extraordinary intellectual depth, allowed him an understanding of the psyche that may yet, through his unpublished writings, be considered to be of lasting significance.

It was his humanity that most revealed him. The kindness that he gave to his family and friends was the same compassion that he used in his professional life.

Macdiarmid was a son of the manse. He was educated at Hillhead High School, Glasgow. In 1942, his family moved to the Highland village of Alness, where his father was a minister in the Church of Scotland. The beauty of the natural world surrounding Macdiarmid during this period was formative for him. It never left him, and in later life with his family he was always drawn back to these lands. He felt a natural Highlander, and never forgot his ancestry on the island of Islay.

His teenage years showed an artistic talent sufficient to secure his first commission: a portrait of the provost of the Royal Burgh of Tain. (A work that can still be viewed on application to the local council offices.) He headed off to Edinburgh College of Art, and lasted a year before the formal restrictions of the institution became too much. He then studied for a classics and moral philosophy degree at Edinburgh University that would allow him to pursue a path into the Church.

He continued to paint all his life, most often lyrical little landscape watercolours that, as he said, could be accomplished within the time it took for his young sons to play. Much influenced by his teacher, Willie Gillies, he was encouraged by his wife, Sue, to once hold a show in London.

His growing interest in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche eventually led to a change of heart and mind, and so without further plans, he volunteered: Macdiarmid always spoke of his time as an education officer in the air force with genuine pleasure. Years later, he returned to RAF Kinloss, and proudly showed his boys the section of perimeter fence that had been his responsibility to defend against enemy attack.

Eventually, he re-enrolled at Edinburgh and emerged with a first in English literature. He always said that he used to look forward to each new academic year because he never knew what excitements it would bring.

Later still, after beginning, but not completing a doctoral thesis on George Macdonald, his growing interest in psychology and the work of Carl Jung took him south to England. He made contact with the Jungian analyst and anthropologist, John Layard, and was eventually analysed by him.

Layard was a huge influence: original, wild, at times possibly slightly mad, and always self-interested. Derry considered him a genius in his understanding of the human psyche, notably the importance of symbolic ritual in his study of the Malekulan islanders, and in his work on dreams as a therapeutic tool that Macdiarmid thought rivalled Freud.

By this time, London was swinging in the Sixties and the boy from the Scottish Highlands arrived, to seek his fortune. He joined a house full of actors, artists and writers in Notting Hill before it was remotely smart. It enthralled this innocent son of the manse.

Financial support from a good friend, Michael Marks, himself a "refugee from a well-known chainstore", enabled Macdiarmid to begin a medical training that would eventually lead to his becoming a psychiatrist within the NHS.

He started at Guy's Medical School in 1965, as a mature student. His enduring curiosity meant that he found great enjoyment in a scientific education at this point in his life.

After working at the Maudsley and Bexley Hospitals, he swiftly gained consultant posts at Middlesex and then Guy's, first as a psychiatrist and later a specialist psychotherapist. He contributed to the teaching of the first postgraduate course in mental health in the UK, originally created by Professor Jim Watson at Guy's. This is still regarded as a benchmark of excellence and used as a model elsewhere. Watson's enlightened approach to the training of mental health professionals meant that the course was designed not just for junior psychiatrists, but for all professions allied to mental health services. Watson quickly recognised the rare quality of Macdiarmid's teaching, and he created a specific post and course in dynamic psychotherapy that he ran for over 15 years. Hundreds of mental health workers have since passed through the course, and been inspired by the teaching of what he referred to as a "psychodynamic enlightenment". The consequence is that Macdiarmid's influence has seeped into the fabric of mental health training and treatment, changing attitudes both within the NHS and in the private sector.

Alongside his teaching, and work with patients in the health service, Macdiarmid was for many years an active and substantial influence within the Society of Analytical Psychology. He became the director of the clinic, a voluntary post he held for many years, which acted as the interface between Jungian therapy and the community. He noted and admired colleagues who put first the needs of the patient. He was less impressed by self-publicity. He was very unimpressed by new rules about membership, when it seemed unrelated to any sort of good work with patients.

In the mid-1970s, he married Sue Dunn, whom he met while both were working as marital therapists. He became an enlightened father to three sons. He said a rich family life was essential to any therapist.

Macdiarmid specialised in retirements: he retired first from the Middlesex Hospital, only to transfer to Guy's. When he finally retired from the NHS in July 1993, he returned the following October to continue his teaching as a consultant emeritus, a post he held at Guy's until June 2006. He continued working in private practice with great energy until recently.

His most lasting influence may yet be understood when his writings are published: he had a unique understanding of the contributions of the great analysts - Freud, Jung, Adler and others throughout the 20th century. His writings explore the personalities of each to give a new and original understanding of how their individual psychologies influenced their work. It offers a perspective on established theory not yet made by others, with insights that are relevant for individuals, families, communities and nations.

Derry Macdiarmid's lasting legacy will be the publication of his book, A Century of Insight.

He is survived by his wife, Sue, and their three sons.