MAX GLATT

MCA VICE PRESIDENT AND ALCOHOLOGIST EXTRAORDINAIRE

David Henry Marjot

I first knew of Max through serving in the Royal Navy. The Army and Navy ran a joint alcoholism treatment unit at the Royal Victoria Hospital Netley, Southampton, that was based on Max’s unit at Warlingham Park. I became aware of the hideous damage inflicted on the Royal Navy by alcohol. He published several papers of mine in the British Journal of Addiction. I left the Navy in 1976 and had sessions at St Bernard’s Hospital in West London. When Max retired, I was most fortunate to be appointed as his successor.


Max Glatt, reproduced by kind permission of the photographer: Sophie Evans.

He had already founded the alcoholism treatment unit, Pinel House, at Warlingham Park Hospital, where the Medical Superintendent was the great Dr T. P. Rees. It was Dr Rees who let Max use a redundant Villa for his unit. Max told me that he found that patients didn’t seem to do very well when they spoke to him, but were much better after speaking to each other. This particularly went for the ‘alcoholic’. Then Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) crossed the Atlantic and found its way to Warlingham Park. He was inspired by the impact of the hope it offered his ‘alcoholics’ and led him to open Pinel House.

When he was appointed Consultant Psychiatrist in charge of the female division of St Bernard’s Hospital in the late 1950s, he converted three wards, one female and two male, for the care of alcoholic and then drug-addicted patients, who wanted abstinence. Those were the days when you could divert the resources under your clinical control to meet new challenges. This became the North West Thames Regional Drug and Alcohol Dependence Unit.

He advised Government, the World Health Organization and other bodies and had a profound effect on the development of the clinical science and art of chemical dependence. He wrote widely and prolifically. He was Editor of the British Journal of Addiction, although his procrastination did try the patience of some contributors! Not content with his responsibilities at St Bernard’s, he founded two residential facilities, one in Hillingdon for drug users and one for alcohol-dependent patients in Ealing. He established a unit for alcohol- and drug-dependent patients at HMP Wormwood Scrubs in conjunction with a programme for those who had committed sexual offences. There was a flourishing out-patient service in Central London. In addition, he had an extensive private practice.

Max had an uncanny empathy with his patients and they were in awe of his ability to ‘read their minds’. He did not seek to gain disciples or acolytes. This may account in later life for the lack of appreciation for his wonderful services. In the 1970s, controversy arose and the AA or 12-step model came under sustained attack. He was singled out as the high priest of 12 steps and was most unfairly criticized. He was open-minded and had no fear of change. He was only unhappy with change as the result of fashion or of rivalry between professions.

He retired from the National Health Service in 1977. He continued almost until his death to go to Wormwood Scrubs. He had a wide private practice and advised a number of private facilities. The Unit at St Bernard’s Hospital is called the Max Glatt Unit in his honour, as is the Unit in HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

His Jewish orthodoxy was a living faith and inspired him with its sense of duty. His family suffered terribly in the Holocaust and this great sense of loss and sadness never left him. He came to England as a refugee from Germany just before the Second World War. He was interned as an enemy alien at one time and was sent to Australia.

I found him an inspiration and I felt that, in part, he was like an elder brother to me (with a fair dash of sibling rivalry). I always felt that I could not retire until he did! He had an astonishing ability to ‘shift’ an enormous clinical and related workload. I do not believe that anyone in the world has seen as many alcohol- and drug-dependent patients as he had, and he used this vast clinical experience to great good effect. He is one of that celestial band of whom one says, ‘We shall not see his like again’.





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