From Australia
Tribute from Australia to mark the Death of Dr. Malcolm Pines
The membership of the Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists recently learnt with much sorrow of the death of Dr. Malcolm Pines. The Committee of Management of the AAGP has asked me to write this piece as a tribute and expression of gratitude for his life for publication in GASi Contexts.
A number of AAGP members have contributed, in our local members’ forum, their thoughts and recollections of Dr. Malcolm Pines on learning of his death including Dr. Stan Gold and Dr. Jocelyn Dunphy-Blomfield and no doubt there will be further recollections in our different forums around the world. A “towering figure” like Malcolm Pines comes but once in a life-time, if that. We were fortunate to have him visit us on a number of occasions in Australia and he contributed much to us even from afar. He was well-known by senior members of the AAGP many of whom have also now passed on.
I first met him when he came to Melbourne in October 1987 invited as the Guest Speaker to help celebrate Dr. O.H.D. Blomfield’s contributions to the Group Training Programme at the Royal Childrens Hospital, Melbourne, on his retirement. Other contributors included Rob Gordon, Fran Hattam and me presenting our co-therapy work with a mothers’ group, Malcolm Pines and of course Bill (Blomfield), himself. At that time I was astounded to learn that Malcolm had published over 200 scientific papers despite not being an academic in the usual sense of the word. He continued to contribute in this fashion also writing and editing numerous books.
His literary and other contributions seemed to me to be generated by genuine curiosity and insight into the human condition with an emphasis on our group membership as humans. As a psychiatrist he was one of those to have been able to develop a very strong footing in his psychoanalytic identity as well as a slightly more latterly developed group-analytic identity: too often one may be emphasised at the diminishment of the other. This dual identity is far less common these days because of the rigorous demands each alone can make upon the individual in contemporary life with respect to training. His involvement in establishing Group-Analytic trainings through Europe and the Eastern Bloc further attests to his devotion to the human group condition. Various examples of his publications have been a feature of our local training programmes for many years.
I later met with Malcolm in London when I worked at the Cassel Hospital from 1990 till early 1993 and I learnt that he, too, earlier in his career, had also worked there. He worked with Tom Main to continue to establish the Therapeutic Community there. He was helpful to me and supportive when times were difficult and helped me, with Lionel Kreeger, to join a group conducted by Meg Sharpe at the Group-Analytic Practice in London where Foulkes also conducted groups. He also put me in touch with Pat De Mare. I subsequently met Malcolm on numerous other occasions at Group-Analytic Society conferences and meetings in Europe with my wife Rosemary. I had the good fortune through these Conferences in Europe to dwell, by chance, in small groups he conducted on several occasions over the years. It was in this setting that I learnt from him that his father had been an Ophthalmologist and Ophthalmic surgeon and that Malcolm had been interested in the eye from a young age. Of course, he considered this had something to do with his later interest in the inner eye. He later assisted me in gaining publication of several manuscripts. He was always a most generous, kind and wise man. He was generative and creative, as far as I am aware, until almost the end at 96 years of age.
I expect there to be numerous contributions globally via different media to celebrate his life.
Best wishes from the other side of the world!
Paul Coombe
12/8/2021
Melbourne
pdcoombe@bigpond.net.au