Mrs Meg Sharpe

Born 4/8/1927 – Died 23/1/2019

Meg Sharpe was Group Analytic and international to her core. Meg was cosmopolitan, resourceful, and able to think on her feet. She lived as a young woman with her beloved husband Peter in Bahrain, Istanbul and Frankfurt before settling in Hampstead and Wimpole Street. Her much loved children also travelled so a visit to the grandchildren might involve a trip to the Southern states of the USA, the South of France, Paris or Dubai.  Unsurprisingly she took ‘like a duck to water’ to travelling around the world providing therapy, instilling an ethical humane approach to the work and keeping in touch with valued colleagues. Meg took a real pleasure in seeing what these colleagues went on to do individually  as well as the trainings they sustained and the institutes they established.  She loved her groups and leaves bereft, many people whom she provided with therapy, supervised, worked with, or simply befriended.  Meg had the warmth and the fight and a way of always being alongside group members, that her patients were deeply grateful for. She helped trainees make the transition to colleagueship with a very light touch.

For Bonnie Gold there was an instant connection to Meg when she joined her group. A connection that never wavered as Meg became her mentor and friend. Meg encouraged, and was intensely loyal, leaving all her analysands feeling understood and special. Her therapy groups were filled with wisdom, humanity and at the same time laughter. The loss of her love is immense.

Meg remains in Dorothy Brown’s memory as this well-groomed, colourfully dressed, elegant woman who was very clear about her boundaries, clear about what she wanted out of a situation, and trusting,  but if you betrayed that trust, that was the end.  She was empathetic, encouraging and truly supportive.  Dennis and Meg were close colleagues and when they came to run the intensive weekend group programme with people attending from across the world, their working relationship flourished.

Meg was taught by Foulkes, in the company of  Adèle Mittwoch, Liesel Hearst and Fernando Arroyave. She then practiced at the Group Analytic Practice which, in its hey-day, acted as the group analytic culture carrier and occupied a privileged position to support clinical and theoretical work. It was a community of intelligent, highly individual, group analysts who buzzed with ideas and publications. Robin Skynner worked on ‘Families and how to survive them’ while Pat de Mare worked on ‘Koinonia.’

Liza Glen recalls ‘My abiding memory of Meg is her ever graceful, feminine presence in the Group Analytic Practice, where she was the only woman amongst her male colleagues, who were Consultant Psychiatrists and mostly members of the Institute of Psychoanalysis whereas Meg had trained with the SAP and was therefore ‘Jungian’, and not strictly speaking a ‘psychoanalyst’.  The Group Analytic Practice held a fabulous annual Christmas Party to which, as a young therapist, I felt surprised and honoured to be invited. One Christmas it was Meg who first proposed that I join the Practice as an Associate.  Hardly surprising that I felt Meg ‘looked out for me; quietly supportive, my ‘go to’ person.  I valued her warmth and experience and admired her strength of character and wisdom; she encouraged and inspired me. Some years later, becoming a full Member of the Group Analytic Practice, I began to attend the meetings that took place without fail on Mondays and got to know her as a colleague and a friend.  Meg was a fine clinician who generally made a deep personal connection with those who were fortunate in becoming her patient.  She was also strong minded, something of a ‘grande-dame’, and could hold her own in those meetings, when at times it might have been easier – or more politic – to countenance a different view; but her fierce and absolute integrity was not to be compromised.’

Meg was a force to be reckoned with, but with a deceptive light touch and infectious enthusiasm. Able to turn her hand to introducing a business plan for the practice or throwing a party but always there for her patients.  Meg carried her own achievements lightly but wanted women to receive the academic recognition, that sometimes comes more easily to men.   She studied sociology at the London School of Economics and trained as a Jungian Analyst before becoming a Group Analyst. The Third Eye: Supervision of Analytic Groups (Sharpe, M. Routledge 2003) is a classic publication. Always keen to learn something new, Meg enjoyed going to AGPA  conferences, where she could join a small group, initially with Anne Alonso, and attend workshops with Scott Rutan and Joe Shay. Dale Godby describes her conducing the large group there. ‘I met Meg in a large group. She convened with a light hand, expecting something joyful to emerge. She welcomed anger, story, myth, even song. We invited her to consult with us and developed a 15-year relationship in which she lovingly transmitted her heart and soul for the work and her love for us well. We loved her in return.

Meg took her skills into the wider world, especially Scandinavia.  Gerda Winther commented, ‘It is with deep sadness I hear of Meg Sharpe´s passing away. She was one of a team from IGA London who came to Denmark  to train us in Group Analysis. She was very respected and loved and her and the team´s training was a gift for which we will always be grateful.’ Lise Rafaelsen described ‘a warm and inspiring relationship that will always be kept in my heart’.

Harold Behr who lead the team in Denmark, recalls Meg’s dignified response in the face of all sorts of mishaps and misadventures. When the team arrived in Copenhagen for its first meeting with trainees, the elevator crowded with staff and their future trainees got stuck for half-an-hour or so, an inauspicious beginning to the transference relationship. Meg’s calming presence prevented at least one staff member from suffering a panic attack.  In contrast Meg told a story of when she sent her steak back twice, because under-cooked, in a most elegant Copenhagen resto’ only to have the chef emerge purple with rage, throw the plate of steak at the wall before stomping off in a huff.

Elegant restaurants were part of Meg’s life. Birthdays would be celebrated with the whole family in an hotel’s fine dining room, where it was understood that the maître d’ would make Meg feel special. Music was a vital part of Megs inner life and she always encourage young musicians. A regular concert attendee, she loved being able to walk from her home to a concert venue.  Meg’s face could light up describing how the latest Gospel Choir at St John’s Smith Square had brought joy into her life.

Meg was one of the team of trainers from the IGA, London who worked on the group analytic training programme in Norway for 5 years from 1984, as a small group conductor, supervisor and lecturer.  Stephen Cogill shared a fond memory of working with Meg in Norway ‘In Norway we did a block each June, when it was quite light enough to walk all night. I did several night walks with Meg, long and late. What a pleasure to have known her.’ Thor Kristian Island commented that ‘her wisdom and warmth made a deep impression on all of us. She will be deeply missed.’

Meg treated people with respect and expected it to be returned. On a flight  a member of the cabin crew was less than respectful to one of the IGA team. Meg, having failed to resolve it on the journey, promptly sent a letter of complaint, marked personal, to Lord King, Chairman of British Airways and was delighted to get a response.

Meg brought her intelligent educated gaze and practical talent to bear on whatever project she undertook.  When the IAGP International Congress came to London in 1998, Meg was determined to show London at its best and reassure anxious visitors by hiring the prestigious and bombproof conference centre close to the historic Houses of Parliament in Westminster. Taking a central role and as always, doing her best for her colleagues.

Earl Hopper recalls:  ‘I first met Meg in the early 1970’s, when she was a student of mine in a seminar during the “dream time” of the Institute of Group Analysis, after which I became her student in so many ways.  We worked together both in London and elsewhere, seeing couples and discussing cases, organising workshops and conferences of various kinds, and co-convening Large Groups, especially in the United States.  In 1979, she chaired the Organising Committee of the Survivor Syndrome Workshop, a task which required the upmost containment of the sentiments aroused by this work, and the firm holding of the staff involved in it.  In 1998, she chaired the Local Organising Committee for the Conference of the International Association for Group Psychotherapy and Group Process. It was not always so easy to manage Group Analysts, Psychoanalytical Group Therapists, Psycho-dramatists, Organisational Consultants, and Family Therapists from many different countries who had a variety of traditions about the acceptance of the fact that not all of them could have the largest room in the Queen Elisabeth Conference Centre at 10:00 o’clock in the morning. As President of this organisation I relied greatly on her diplomacy.  During the last decade or so, as she slowly retired to the South of France, we met for lunch about once a month. We often reminisced about old friends who were no longer with us.  From time to time, we walked to a nearby church, where she would quietly light a candle.  When she asked me to light a candle with her, I was somewhat hesitant, because, as I explained, I could not do this with complete authenticity.  In turn, she explained that by now I should have learned that sometimes it was necessary to do things on the basis that they could cause no harm. Of course, I obliged.  Afterwards, I asked her how she would describe herself professionally. After a bit of thought she replied that she was a Jungian Analyst and a Group Analyst, but then she settled for a “Jungian Group Analyst”.  We agreed that this was her way of expressing the spirituality of our clinical project rather than committing herself to a particular theory.  I will miss my big sister.  She filled a large space in my life.’

Meg was not someone who could be told when to retire. Having kept herself fit through dance classes, cycling and walking, she was able to work as long as she wished. A Francophile, Meg eventually moved to Antibes in the South of France, where she could be independent but close to her family.

Meg would want her colleagues and past patients to know how well and active she was when she took her leave of us.  Days before she died Meg telephoned, encouraging me to visit and asking me, to look after a past client of hers who had been in contact.  An excerpt from a recent email might convey a picture of her still making the most of life.

‘All well this end, sun still shining and it is no longer humid. We went round the ramparts this a.m. And had a good walk. We have finally found the best coffee cafe for us on Albert Premiere, we have been so often that when we sit down they automatically bring the coffee!  Too bad if we want something different!  We go to Paris in a week for a few days and I am looking forward to a change and to see the family there. We stay in our favourite hotel just across from the Tuileries gardens and the Louvre. I first went to the lovely city when I was 18!! ‘

No major illness had dared impose on her in her 91 years.  It took a cardiac arrest, out of the blue, in the midst of her daily life to wrench her away, without pain and in the arms of her loving husband Peter, as she would have wished.

Meg loved children and supported Great Ormond Street Childrens’ Hospital. Donations can be made at:  https://www.gosh.org/donate/make-one-donation

Cynthia Rogers
March 2019