Background
James Robertson was born in Glasgow and grew up in a close-knit working-class family. He became a Quaker in his late teens, and in the Second World War he registered as a conscientious objector. In 1941 James and his wife Joyce Robertson joined Anna Freud in the Hampstead Wartime Nurseries. Joyce was a student caring for the infants who had lost family life due to the war. James began by organising the maintenance and firewatching, but later became the social worker. Both James and Joyce benefited from teaching by Anna Freud.
After the war, James trained as a Psychiatric Social Worker and joined John Bowlby at the Tavistock Clinic in 1948, to make observations on separated young children. As a convenient way to do so, he was sent to the short stay children's ward at the Central Middlesex Hospital in London.
Read more about this topic: James Robertson (psychoanalyst)
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