John "Jock" Derg Sutherland was born in
Edinburgh on 23 April 1905, the sixth of eight children. He studied medicine at the
University of Edinburgh and the
University of Glasgow. As a psychiatrist in Edinburgh, Sutherland undertook a training analysis with
Ronald Fairbairn. In 1935, aged 30, he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were
James Drever,
Sir Godfrey Thomson,
W. R. D. Fairbairn and
Francis Albert Eley Crew. At the onset of
World War II he moved to a psychiatric unit in
Glasgow, expecting a wave of mentally scarred soldiers. In 1941 he briefly joined the
Royal Army Medical Corps. In 1942 he moved to
London to work at the
Tavistock Clinic, serving as its Director from 1947 to 1968. From 1968 to 1974 he worked at the
Royal Edinburgh Hospital, contributing psychodynamic principles to the general psychiatric training. He published a number of articles on psychoanalytic subjects, from
object relations theory to group therapy, both singly and co-authored; as well as having an extensive private practice. Among the colleagues he worked with, and whose careers he fostered, were
Harry Guntrip,
Charles Rycroft and
R. D. Laing. His work in the United States played a significant part in opening up
ego psychology to the object relations tradition. After his return to Edinburgh in 1968, he was instrumental in the formation in 1972 of the
Scottish Institute of Human Relations, SIHR, which became a sister 'outpost' north of the border, of the Tavistock Clinic, London, and was sometimes referred to as the 'MacTavi'. The Scottish Institute had offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow and was finally dissolved in 2013 after over forty years of operation as a professional body. Sutherland died in Edinburgh on 14 June 1991. ==Publications==