John D Davis 1937-2024

Our friend and colleague John D Davis, who has died aged 86, was a brilliantly imaginative clinician and scholar, who inspired and nurtured many colleagues. Distinctive skills and values imparted by his American graduate school experience enabled his unique contributions to training and practice in British clinical psychology and psychotherapy. He began his intellectual journey as a gifted mathematician with an eager curiosity concerning psychological theory and therapy. He was also a generous friend, who enjoyed sharing his pleasures with others.

John was born on 31st March 1937 in Tottenham, London, the second child of Lily and Louis Davis. After conscription into the RAF where he became a Russian language translator, he went to Oxford as an Open Scholar and State Scholar in Mathematics. On graduating he became disenchanted with the subject after visiting the National Physical Laboratory, where he had been invited to work on automated Russian translation, and he resolved to leave mathematics behind as a profession, while continuing to enjoy displaying its analytical elegance and rigour, in due course developing exceptional skill in statistical analysis of quantitative data.

John returned to Oxford to read PPP (Psychology, with Philosophy or Physiology) and subsequently secured a Fulbright travel scholarship for post-graduate studies in clinical psychology at Indiana University, where he met his wife Marcia, a fellow student. As part of their PhD requirements, they served internships at Langley Porter Institute in San Francisco, from 1966-1968. This was an exciting time, both clinically and culturally.

John's PhD thesis won third prize in the American Psychologist national PhD awards. The resulting book, The Interview as Arena: Strategies in Standardized Interviews and Psychotherapy, was published by Stanford University Press.

John and Marcia came to England in 1968, John pursuing an academic career and additionally working part-time in the NHS. He was invited in 1969 to apply for a post at the University of Sheffield. There, he won an SSRC grant to follow up his PhD and also worked as an Honorary Senior Clinical Psychologist at the Whiteley Wood Clinic. Marcia and John set up a study group for local NHS practitioners, introducing the idea, then novel in England, of recording and analysing clinical sessions to enhance practice.

In 1977, John was invited to apply for a senior lectureship at the University of Warwick, where the head of psychology intended to set up a clinical psychology training course. However, there were insufficient placements available for such a programme, and John proposed instead to establish a course leading to an MSc in Psychotherapy. This innovative and influential course was staffed by John, who worked an additional day in the NHS, and Marcia, who had a one-fifth appointment at the University alongside her senior NHS role.

The course was designed for eight qualified clinical psychologists who wanted to develop psychotherapeutic skills. It provided in-house clinical supervision and a therapy group for trainees and required submission of a research thesis. Trainees, most of whom were supported by the NHS, came from all over Britain and attended one full day a week for two years. John attracted internationally recognised experts to contribute teaching inputs to the course. It was ground-breaking in being both theoretically integrative and based on empirical research.

These qualities made it uniquely suitable for equipping clinical psychologists to take up leading roles as specialists in psychological therapy. Eight cohorts completed the course between 1978 and 1994, significantly enhancing clinical psychology's contribution to psychological therapy provision across the NHS. A small number of allied professionals including counsellors and psychiatrists were also included amongst the trainees.

In addition to the MSc, John maintained a full undergraduate teaching load. He carried out and published research, supervised research students and served as external examiner.

Taking advantage of the American psychotherapy researcher Robert Elliott's sabbatical visit to Sheffield in 1984/5, John invited him into a collaboration with graduates of the MSc and local clinicians, investigating the topic of therapist difficulties and coping strategies, leading to the development of a taxonomy (eventually published in 1987) that formed the basis for one of the instruments employed by the International Study of the Professional Development of Psychotherapists. This collaborative venture was initiated in 1991 by David Orlinsky from the University of Chicago (a regular visitor to the MSc) under the auspices of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. It was developed and conducted by an international steering committee, of which John was a leading member for seven years, paving the way for large-scale data collection in the UK. Drawing on his long-standing research interest in therapeutic boundaries, John contributed to this study a further instrument on adherence to therapeutic frames.

Clinically, John developed a special interest in dissociative disorders, providing a recognized service within the Coventry NHS psychology department and holding the title of Consultant Specialist in Dissociative Disorders.

John worked within the NHS for fifty-one years; he received his Lifetime Achievement Award for fifty years of service in early 2020. He was active in the BPS Division of Clinical Psychology, as a representative to the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, in psychotherapy course accreditations and advising on complaints of malpractice. John was awarded a BPS Fellowship for these services.

Outside of his busy work life, John had a keen interest in plants and maintained a large collection of alpines in a corner of his garden. He combined this hobby with his love of walking on numerous trips to the temperate corners of the world. He appreciated good food and fine wine and enjoyed sharing these liberally.

John's wide-ranging hedonism encompassed genuine enjoyment of dedicated and conscientious hard work, where this was aligned with his deeply-held values around the development of human potential, creativity, self-actualisation and relatedness. Tenaciously pursuing what mattered to him surely helped him to meet numerous health challenges with great forbearance.

As a couple, John and Marcia sustained many close, lasting and mutually rewarding friendships with colleagues, neighbours, and walking companions, alongside their rich family life.

He is survived by Marcia, their sons Jonathan and Meredith, six grandchildren and one great-grandson.