Elizabeth Tylden

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Reference number	TCVOICES/1279
Level of description	File
Date(s)	Creation: 2001
Extent and medium	1 digital document, 2 digital audio files, 1 audio cassette tape
Scope and content	┆Oral history interview with Dr Elizabeth Tylden Name: Elizabeth 'Betty' Tylden Dates: 1917-2009 Biographical summary: Tylden was a British psychiatrist who specialized in working with adult survivors of child abuse, and those affected by religious cults and the use of mind control techniques. In 1951 she a co-founder St Julian's, an experimental communal household in which families could live and work together and in the early 1960s she co-founded Stepping Stones, a psychiatric day hospital. Interviewer: Teresa Wilmshurst Brief summary of interview: Tylden starts by providing an overview of health care and the health care system in Kent at the end of the Second World War and notably Bexley Hospital and Barming Heath Hospital. She explains how this led to the Stepping Stones Club, and then Stepping Stones being established. Tylden describes how both her and her husband pioneered family psychiatry because of their interested in both child and adult psychiatry. Tylden speaks briefly of her work before she met her husband, specially her war work at the Emergency Medical Service and the trailing of occupational therapy with soldiers returning from the front. She tells an anecdote about being a woman in a male dominated profession before moving on to discuss the therapeutic qualities of group work including the use of leaderless discussion groups and the influence of Maxwell Jones. Tylden then talks about how she established Stepping Stones after securing funding form the Kings Fund and the role former patients played in establishing the service at Masons Hill, Bromley. She describes the conditions of membership and the expansion to offer adolescence and child services alongside adult services. In the second half of the interview, Tylden focuses on her work with drug dependency and gives a brief overview of her career. Date of recording: 17 January 2001 Recording length: 0:43:58 and 0:09:25 Transcript: Yes
History	Interview recorded by Teresa Wilmshurst (Assistant Archivist) on behalf of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust.
Access status	OPEN
Conditions governing reproduction	Copyright of Elizabeth Tylden.
Records held elsewhere	The Wellcome Collection holds the main run of Tylden's papers. Ref: PP/TYL
Language	ENG