Brian Lake

Dr Brian Lake

A sad note to the turn of the year (January 2008) was the news of the death of SIHR member Brian Lake.

From David Goodacre

I was able to represent the Guntrip Trustees and the Scottish Institute of Human Relations at Brian Lake’s funeral in the beautiful old church of Grinton, in the middle of Swaledale in North Yorkshire. Frank Lake’s son and Brian’s niece Dr Kate Lake spoke movingly about Brian’s life and his importance as an uncle. There were representatives from Brian’s professional life as doctor, psychotherapist, teacher, and researcher.
Dorothy and the family asked that donations in memory of Brian should be given to the Guntrip Trust.

From Murray Leishman

Some of us, directly in the Scottish Institute of Human Relations, and indirectly, have benefited immensely from this man. He had an extraordinary quality of listening, both deeply reflective and at the same time humorous. He would say that during his experience of doctoring on the Cunard line on the Atlantic run, there arose in him a lifelong fascination with the role of unconscious conflict underlying so much human behaviour.

Brian’s approach stood in clear contrast to that of his brother Frank who came to psychiatry during his work as a medical missionary. ‘Frank had all the drive and certainty of the twice born’, writes Michael Hare Duke, their erstwhile colleague in clinical theology. Brian used his insight into the working of the human personality to reflect critically on the development of their enterprise and to think prudently about his brother’s tendency to overstretch resources.

Brian’s approach to clinical work was patient and careful. He was a straight talker. When the young minister David Goodacre told him that he wanted to be a counsellor, he replied: ‘Well, you must have an analysis first’ – ‘which was exactly what I didn’t want to hear’, said David. But the result was a very fruitful analysis with Harry Guntrip.

Like his analyst Guntrip, Brian was a bridge builder. In the early ‘80s he welcomed Professor James Whyte and a group of us from Scotland to meet John Habgood, the Archbishop of York. A group of us decided there and then to set up a bursary scheme open to religious leaders who weren’t afraid to take a look at themselves in order to understand other people better. We agreed with Paul Tillich that the churches ignore at their peril the riches opened up to us by Freud’s work.

At subsequent meetings of the Guntrip Trust somebody commented: ‘When Brian and Dorothy attend they add a touch of class to our discussions’.

Brian and Dorothy have been tireless researchers, their work climaxing in their book ‘The Challenge of Attachment for Care-giving’. They propose a model for the development of care giving in a way that complements and extends John Bowlby’s work on Attachment. Their colleague and friend, Una McCluskey, has brought forward research findings of greater interest, and we can look forward to another book.

Thus colleagues Dorothy and Una will develop and memorialise Brian Lake’s outstanding contribution to our field.