Emmay Deville

Thesis Title: Selfhood, society and the psychotherapeutic encounter: Reshaping of the ‘self’ at the Tavistock Clinic c.1920-1948

Established after World War I to treat shell shock, the Tavistock Clinic has played a central role in shaping psychotherapeutic practice in Britain. This project explores how its interwar treatments shaped patients’ social lives and ideas of selfhood between 1920 and the founding of the NHS in 1948.

Drawing on patient files from the Tavistock Clinic, the project investigates identity formation at the clinic by examining understandings of gender, sexuality, and class. It will ask: did the Tavistock’s practices promote, challenge, or provide space to explore gender, sexual and class-based norms? And, how did these ideas permeate society? To understand the broader social impact of psychotherapy, the study will use genealogical records to determine whether patients' social lives changed following psychotherapy, by examining changes in employment, residence and family life.

This research offers the first sustained study of the Tavistock’s role in reshaping notions of identity and emotional life in twentieth-century Britain. I am supervised by Professor Mathew Thomson and Professor Matt Houlbrook.

Biography:

I completed by BA(Hons) in History at the University of Warwick, and my MSc in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology at the University of Oxford. My PhD project builds on my MSc dissertation, entitled '‘What does a woman want?’: The female psychotherapist, the female patient, and the Tavistock Clinic c. 1920- 1945'. Before starting the PhD, I worked as the Governance Officer of Oriel College, Oxford.

Department of History, University of Warwick

2025 Cohort

Email:

Supervisory Team:

Professor Matthew Thomson

Professor Matt Houlbrook