Douglas Haldane
| J. Douglas Haldane | |
|---|---|
| Born | 13 March 1926 Annan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland |
| Died | 19 July 2012 St. Andrews, Scotland |
| Residence |
Edinburgh Fife Aberdeen |
| Citizenship | British |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Fields |
Child psychiatry Family Therapy Marriage counselling Depth psychology Spirituality |
| Institutions |
Royal Edinburgh Hospital Stratheden Hospital University of Aberdeen |
| Alma mater | Edinburgh University |
| Known for | Child and Family Psychiatry Family Therapy Scottish Institute of Human Relations Marriage Counselling Scotland |
| Influences |
W.R.D. Fairbairn J. D. Sutherland D.W. Winnicott Fred Emery Eric Trist John Bowlby |
| Influenced | Children's play in hospitals, British government policy on marriage, psychoanalytic thinking in Scotland |
(Johnston) Douglas Haldane MBE, FRCPsych (born 13 March 1926 in Annan, died 19 July 2012 in St. Andrews) was a pioneering Scottish child psychiatrist, who established Great Britain's first department of Child and Family Psychiatry in 1960 in Cupar in Fife. He opened the first family in-patient treatment unit in Scotland and introduced a range of innovative therapeutic art interventions. He sat on numerous policy working parties and led a variety of professional committees. He became a founding member of the Association for Family Therapy. He was a co-founder of the Scottish Institute of Human Relations. During his time as an academic, he devoted much time to influence the development of a government policy on Marriage. He was also an elder of the Church of Scotland.
Douglas Haldane was born in the Lowlands of Scotland. Why all his names are surnames remains a mystery, but probably connects him with three local clans. He was a good scholar and attended academies in Dumbarton and Dumfries. He entered Edinburgh University to study medicine in 1943, graduating MB ChB in 1948. After a tour as an obstetric house surgeon at Cresswell Maternity Hospital, Dumfries and in Edinburgh, he spent his National service as a surgeon lieutenant in the RNVR. On completing his service, he married his wife, Kathleen. They had three sons.
In the early 1950s he was promoted to registrar at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and became lecturer at the Royal College of Nursing. At the end of the decade he was appointed at a relatively young age, consultant psychiatrist and depute physician superintendent at Stratheden Hospital, Cupar in Fife. The hospital had been an old-style asylum, but he pursued his vision of creating a department of Child and Family Psychiatry which he succeeded in doing in 1960 in a designated unit called, 'Playfield House' in the hospital grounds. This became a base for out-reach child and family services in Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy and other areas in the Kingdom of Fife. He believed in involving children's domestic and educational settings and persuaded colleagues from other disciplines to explore new avenues of treatment. One of his notable recruits was the artist, Joyce Laing, who was instrumental in the rehabilitation of a convicted 'lifer' at Barlinnie prison, Jimmy Boyle. Haldane managed to persuade Fife Health board to build two family residential units in the grounds of Stratheden which he achieved by 1975. In that period, Haldane had been appointed honorary lecturer in psychiatry at the University Edinburgh. In 1976 Haldane took up an academic appointment as senior lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, which afforded more time for writing and committee work. He became honorary consultant to Grampian Health Board. Douglas Haldane formally retired from his university post in 1991, but continued for a further decade with his many other engagements from his home in St. Andrews, which included acting as consultant to the Camphill Movement in Scotland. He was briefly a director of the Garnethill Centre in Glasgow. His sculptor wife pre-deceased him, having succumbed to dementia. Haldane died shortly and unexpectedly after moving into a residential home, at the age of 86.
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