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Dr David Zigmond Home Page
Professional Profile
David Zigmond initially trained in Medicine in the 1960s. From this he developed a lifetime interest in the often
dislocated but creative tension between art and science in understanding ourselves, one another and any effort
to be 'helpful'. His explorations have led to a crystallisation of humanistic and person-centred approaches to
understanding (medically, 'diagnosis'), and influence (medically, 'treatment').
In the decades following his qualification he trained in General Medical Practice, Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
(both psychoanalytic and humanistic). His professional involvement has continued in all of these activities, both
as a frontline practitioner in the National Health Service and in postgraduate education of psychotherapists, doctors
and other healthcare professionals.
His numerous articles, since the 1970s, have investigated often overlooked social and psychological aspects of
care. His perspectives combine, particularly, the pragmatically humanistic with the accessibly philosophical. His
appeal, for disciplined and imaginative eclecticism, is more compatible with traditions of liberal education than
with the current march towards regulation and hegemonised training.
Growing trends to the industrialisation of healthcare have often (unwittingly) displaced quality and continuity
of personal contact. His recent articles have sought to raise awareness and debate about the seriousness and complexity
of this loss. Thoughtful choreography between art and science is required: his writing reflects this with language
composed to be both poetic and precise.
Author's note and acknowledgements
The following selection of articles, from 1976, were published in a variety of journals. I am grateful for each
publisher's permission to reconvey them here. Acknowledgement of the original publication and date are to be found
at the end of each article.
The older articles were written for mainstream medical journals and readers, and have a more formal style and format
than later writings, which generally adhere far less to traditional and formal academic convention.
The earlier writings, from the mid-1970s to the 1980s, were conceived in a world of flared trousers, floral shirts,
Zapata moustaches and radical critique. The latter were often fired by eccentric luminaries who disturbed and dissolved
conventional academic boundaries and territories. Their like are now very rare. My published articles from that
time have a conventional formality that harboured (still) challenging questions and alternatives. We now live in
more schematized times, and it is extremely unlikely that any equivalent mainstream journal would publish anything
so countercultural. Is that progress? I leave that for the reader's enquiry.
I have not changed the old-fashioned, generic 'he' to the now politically-correct 'he/she', merely because it sounds
and looks cumbersome (to me).
I decided on only minor editorial revisions, and only to the older articles. With these I have shaved, tightened,
reshaped and sharpened some of the language, but have left the design of argument, analysis, examples and narrative
as it was.
Medical and social historians may enjoy finding anachronisms and (now) historic relics: Doctors' White Coats and
Residents' Messes, dissection tables, Mental Hospitals and militaristic professional titles and patriarchies have
all but disappeared. Likewise, the designation of 'Psychosomatic', though not the problems. The older articles
may thus seem quaintly dated. Their motivating quest, for holistically caring systems and psychologies — of resonance, imagination and dialogue — is probably even more relevant now.
David Zigmond
Introduction to the writings of David Zigmond
Letter
to the Secretary of State for Health
Commodification,
commissioning and commercialisation: the growing threats to personal healthcare.(2011)
Five
Executive Follies
How commodification imperils compassion in personal healthcare (2011)
Bureaucratyrannohypoxia An open letter to Mental Health Services Director(2010)
Articles
The Medical Model—its Limitations and Alternatives(1976)
Suicide
and Attempted Suicide: Its Origin and Course(1977)
Out of Sight But Not Out of Mind(1977)
Scientific Psychiatry: Progress or Regress?(1977)
Illness as Strategy and Communication (1977)
Adjustment or change? Radical issues in psychiatry (1978)
The Elements of Psychotherapy (1981)
Transactional
Analysis in Medical Practice: Part
1(1981)
Transactional
Analysis in Medical Practice: Part
2(1982)
A Psychosomatic Approach(1982)
The Psychosomatic Mosaic(1982)
Mother, Magic or Medicine? The
Psychology of the Placebo(1984)
Physician Heal Thyself:
The Paradox of the Wounded Healer(1984)
Babel or Bible?
Order, Chaos and Creativity in Psychotherapy(1986)
Three Types of Encounter
in the Healing Arts:
Dialogue, Dialectic and Didacticism (1987)
The Psychoecology of Gladys Parlett(1988)
The Front Door of Psychotherapy:
Aspects from
General Medical Practice(1989)
The Shadow of Venus: Atavism and Sexuality(1995)
Edward: shot in his own interest. Technototalitarianism and the fragility of the therapeutic dance (2005)
Planning, Reform and the need for Live, Human Sacrifices: Homogeny and Hegemony as Symbols of Change (2006)
Modern Times: True Parables form the Frontline of the NHS (2008)
No Country for Old Men:
The Rise of Managerialism and the New Cultural Vacuum (2009)
Psychiatry Love's Labour Lost:
The pursuit of The Plan and the eclipse of the personal (2010)
Why Would Anyone Use
an Unproven Therapy?
Treasures
in the Mist (2010)
Idiomorphism: the Lost
Continent
How diagnosis displaces personal understanding (2011)
Resolved
or Abandoned?
Irresponsibly lost Transference: a professionally embarrassed tale (2011)
Sense and Sensibility:
The danger of Specialisms to holistic, psychological care (2011)
How to help Harry - Friend or Foe?
The scientific and the scientistic in the fog of the frontline (2012)
Section Contents Copyright ©; Dr David Zigmond 1976, 2012
This version: 28th January 2012
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