Northfield Military Hospital

The Northfield Hospital was a psychiatric hospital located at Tessal Lane, Northfield in Birmingham, England, and is famous primarily for the work on group psychotherapy that took place there in the years of the Second World War. Northfield Hospital was formed by the Rubery Hill and Hollymoor Hospitals, and closed in 1995.

Northfield hospital refers to both the Rubery Hill and Hollymoor Hospitals in Northfield. Dr Thomas Lyle oversaw the building of Rubery Hill Hospital which opened in 1882 and he was appointed as its first Medical Superintendent. Hollymoor Hospital was built as an annexe to Rubery Lunatic Asylum by Birmingham Corporation and opened 6 May 1905. During the 1914–1918 Great War, Rubery Hill was commandeered and became known as the 1st Birmingham War Hospital.

During the Second World War, the hospital was again converted to a military hospital in 1940. In April 1942 it became a military psychiatric hospital and became known as Northfield Military Hospital. Poet Vernon Scannell was a patient at the hospital in 1947.

By 1949 the Hollymoor Hospital was recognisably distinct from Rubery Hill Hospital. It held 590 patients, falling slowly to 490 by 1984, and then dropping rapidly to 139 by 1994. The hospital closed in 1995 and was largely demolished.

In 1942, while Northfield was serving as a military hospital, psychoanalysts Wilfred Bion and John Rickman set up the first Northfield experiment. Bion and Rickman were in charge of the training and rehabilitation wing of Northfield, and ran the unit along the principles of group dynamics. . Their aim was to improve morale by creating a "good group spirit" (esprit de corps). Though he sounded like a traditional army officer Bion's means were very unconventional. He was in charge of around one hundred men. He told them that they had to do an hour’s exercise every day and that each had to join a group: "handicrafts, Army courses, carpentry, map-reading, sand-tabling etc.… or form a fresh group if he wanted to do so". While this may have looked like traditional occupational therapy, the real therapy was the struggle to manage the interpersonal strain of organising things together, rather than simply weaving baskets. Those unable to join a group would have to go to the rest-room, where a nursing orderly would supervise a quiet regime of "reading, writing or games such as draughts... any men who felt unfit for any activity whatever could lie down". The focus of every day was a meeting of all the men, referred to as a parade.

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