Sandra Birtchnell

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and a formidable chess competitor. He was the author of wittycontributions to the College Bulletin as ‘Ezra the Scribe’ and wrotea history of the College entitled Madness to Mental Illness.2Thomas died on 26 June 2022. Beulah died in 2018. Theirdaughter Sarah died in 2003. He is survived by his other fourchildren, Susan, Louisa, Henry and Emma, and his grand-daughter Hannah.References1 Bewley TH. Opiate addiction. Lancet 1964; 1: 938.2 Bewley TH. Madness to Mental Illness: A History of the Royal College ofPsychiatrists. RCPsych Publications, 2008.Martin Mitchesondoi:10.1192/bjb.2022.80© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of theRoyal College of Psychiatrists. This is an Open Access article, distributed under theterms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction,provided the original article is properly cited.John Birtchnell, MD, DPM, FRCPsych, FBPsSFormerly Scientific Officer, Medical Research Council Socialand Community Psychiatric Unit, Institute of Psychiatry,London, UKJohn Birtchnell, who died on 5 September 2022 at the ageof 90, had a long and prolific career in psychiatric research. Acommon factor linking his areas of research interest was thedefinition and measurement of psychological dependence. Itwas out of this that he developed his general theory of relating,which he regarded as his most important contribution toknowledge.1 Questionnaires were constructed for measuringmaladaptive forms of relating both between couples andbetween family members. The theory has proved useful in theassessment of personality disorder in a number of clinicalsettings. It has also been used in research in the evaluation ofindividual and couple psychotherapy.2 Having observed astrong association between marital quality and depression hebegan to develop measures of marital quality and carried out acollaborative study with marriage guidance counsellors andwith the Tavistock Institute of Marital Studies in London. Out ofthis collaboration emerged numerous papers on the linksbetween marital conflict, marital affection and depression inwives. Another strand to his research was a concern with thepossible causes and management of attempted suicide, whichled to links with the Samaritans.Throughout his career John balanced his pursuit of stat-istically valid data from populations with the in-depth knowl-edge of individuals, couples and families gained through hisclinical work as a psychotherapist. In over 100 publishedpapers, topics included early loss and separation experiences,social class and mental illness, marital quality and depression,the causes and management of attempted suicide and mal-adaptive forms of relating. In later years John drew on evolu-tionary theory to theorise on brain function and was fascinatedby aspects of memory even as his own was failing.John was born in Aylesbury on 8 April 1932, the only childof Wilfred and Minnie Birtchnell. His father was an aircraftfitter. The family moved to Gloucester when he was five, hisfather taking a job in a nearby aircraft factory. John attended SirThomas Rich School. His schooling was interrupted when, atthe age of 12, he fell from a tree, sustaining a compound frac-ture of his arm and nearly dying of septicaemia, being saved bythe recent introduction of sulphonamides. A second medicalemergency was the outcome of his quest for knowledge, when,at the age of 15, learning that six berries of deadly nightshadewould be lethal, he thought it would be interesting to experi-ence the effects of three.Already confirmed in his wish to be a psychiatrist beforehe studied medicine at Edinburgh University, he did house jobsin psychiatry and neurosurgery, then senior house officerposts in Liverpool in neurology and psychiatry, obtaining theDiploma in Psychological Medicine in 1963. After clinical postsat Crichton Royal Hospital (Dumfries) and St John’s Hospital(Aylesbury) he went to Aberdeen. His earliest research interestswere in the possible short- and long-term consequences of par-ental death, the topic of his MD thesis, at Aberdeen University,where he subsequently trained full time in psychotherapy,obtaining the Aberdeen University Diploma in Psychotherapy.For the remainder of his career he worked for the MedicalResearch Council, commencing as an MRC Clinical ResearchFellow in the Department of Mental Health, AberdeenUniversity, where he worked on the Aberdeen Case Register,then moving in 1970 to the MRC Clinical Psychiatry Unit atGraylingwell Hospital, Chichester, under the directorship of DrPeter Sainsbury. Here the focus was research on suicide andattempted suicide. On Dr Sainsbury’s retirement in 1982, thisunit was disbanded and John was relocated to the MRC SocialPsychiatry Unit at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, where heworked for most of his career. After his retirement in 1998, hecontinued to work as an Attached Worker with the Section ofClinical Psychiatry at the Institute.He was the editor of the British Journal of MedicalPsychology (1989–1995) and it is a measure of his ability towork collaboratively across disciplines that, as well as being a185COLUMNSObituarieshttps://doi.org/10.1192/bjb.2023.1 Published online by Cambridge University PressFellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, he was awardedthe Fellowship of the British Psychological Society andHonorary Membership of the British Association of ArtTherapists.John was a keen amateur artist and developed an interestin art therapy while at Aberdeen. It was there that he made afilm A young man preoccupied with his nose. He wrote papers onart therapy and contributed over a 20-year period to an annualresidential art therapy school at Leeds Metropolitan University.He married Rosemary (Niven) in 1961 and they divorced in1969. He met his second wife, Sandra, in 1970, when she cameon secondment to the MRC Unit in Chichester, the courtshipritual including writing two papers together. Following marriagein 1973, they had two sons. In later years, he developedAlzheimer’s disease which had a chronic course. His illnessspared him the grief of the loss of his younger son in 2020. Heis survived by his wife, elder son and grandson.References1 Birtchnell J. How Humans Relate: A New Interpersonal Theory. Praeger,1993.2 Birtchnell J. Relating in Psychotherapy: Application of a New Theory.Praeger, 1999.Sandra Birtchnelldoi:10.1192/bjb.2023.1© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf ofthe Royal College of Psychiatrists. This is an Open Access article, distributedunder the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creative-commons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distributionand reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.186COLUMNSObituarieshttps://doi.org/10.1192/bjb.2023.1 Published online by Cambridge University Press

John Birtchnell, MD, DPM, FRCPsych, FBPsS

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John Birtchnell, MD, DPM, FRCPsych, FBPsS

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