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Michael Rutter
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Michael Rutter
Sir Michael Llewellyn Rutter (15 August 1933 – 23 October 2021) was the first person to be appointed professor of child psychiatry in the United Kingdom. He has been described as the "father of child psychiatry".
Rutter was professor of developmental psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital, a post he held from 1966 until retiring in July 2021. A survey published in Review of General Psychology in 2002 ranked Rutter as the 68th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Rutter was the oldest child born to Winifred (née Barber) and Llewellyn Rutter. He was born in Lebanon where his father was a doctor, and was bilingual in English and Arabic by the age of 3. The family moved back to England when he was 4 years old. In 1940, at the age of 7, Rutter was evacuated, with his younger sister, to North America amid fears of a German invasion. They were sent to different households, and he had a much happier time than his sister Priscilla. They both returned to their family in 1944
Rutter attended the Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey, USA. Later he attended Wolverhampton Grammar School and then Bootham School in York. Here a physics teacher encouraged him to read works of Freud, and he trained himself to wake up and write down his dreams. This marked the beginning of his journey into psychology. He continued his studies at the University of Birmingham Medical School, originally intending to become a GP and join his father in his practice. However, he became more interested in the relationship between the brain, mind and neurosurgery, and went into post-graduate training in neurology and paediatrics.
He was mentored by Sir Aubrey Lewis at the Maudsley Hospital in South London, who guided him towards becoming a child psychiatrist. Rutter had not realised before this point that this was a profession that would suit him well.
Rutter set up the Medical Research Council (UK) Child Psychiatry Research Unit in 1984 and the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre ten years later, being Honorary Director of both until October 1998. He was Deputy Chairman of the Wellcome Trust from 1999 to 2004, and was a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation from 1992 to 2008.
Rutter's work includes: early epidemiological studies (Isle of Wight and Inner London); studies of autism involving a wide range of scientific techniques and disciplines, including DNA study and neuroimaging; links between research and practice; deprivation; influences of families and schools; genetics; reading disorders; biological and social, protective and risk factors; interactions of biological and social factors; stress; longitudinal as well as epidemiologic studies, including childhood and adult experiences and conditions; and continuities and discontinuities in normal and pathological development. The British Journal of Psychiatry credits him with a number of "breakthroughs" in these areas. Rutter is also recognized as contributing centrally to the establishment of child psychiatry as a medical and biopsychosocial specialty with a solid scientific base.
He published over 400 scientific papers and chapters and some 40 books. He was the European Editor for the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders between 1974 and 1994.
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Michael Rutter
Sir Michael Llewellyn Rutter (15 August 1933 – 23 October 2021) was the first person to be appointed professor of child psychiatry in the United Kingdom. He has been described as the "father of child psychiatry".
Rutter was professor of developmental psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital, a post he held from 1966 until retiring in July 2021. A survey published in Review of General Psychology in 2002 ranked Rutter as the 68th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Rutter was the oldest child born to Winifred (née Barber) and Llewellyn Rutter. He was born in Lebanon where his father was a doctor, and was bilingual in English and Arabic by the age of 3. The family moved back to England when he was 4 years old. In 1940, at the age of 7, Rutter was evacuated, with his younger sister, to North America amid fears of a German invasion. They were sent to different households, and he had a much happier time than his sister Priscilla. They both returned to their family in 1944
Rutter attended the Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey, USA. Later he attended Wolverhampton Grammar School and then Bootham School in York. Here a physics teacher encouraged him to read works of Freud, and he trained himself to wake up and write down his dreams. This marked the beginning of his journey into psychology. He continued his studies at the University of Birmingham Medical School, originally intending to become a GP and join his father in his practice. However, he became more interested in the relationship between the brain, mind and neurosurgery, and went into post-graduate training in neurology and paediatrics.
He was mentored by Sir Aubrey Lewis at the Maudsley Hospital in South London, who guided him towards becoming a child psychiatrist. Rutter had not realised before this point that this was a profession that would suit him well.
Rutter set up the Medical Research Council (UK) Child Psychiatry Research Unit in 1984 and the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre ten years later, being Honorary Director of both until October 1998. He was Deputy Chairman of the Wellcome Trust from 1999 to 2004, and was a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation from 1992 to 2008.
Rutter's work includes: early epidemiological studies (Isle of Wight and Inner London); studies of autism involving a wide range of scientific techniques and disciplines, including DNA study and neuroimaging; links between research and practice; deprivation; influences of families and schools; genetics; reading disorders; biological and social, protective and risk factors; interactions of biological and social factors; stress; longitudinal as well as epidemiologic studies, including childhood and adult experiences and conditions; and continuities and discontinuities in normal and pathological development. The British Journal of Psychiatry credits him with a number of "breakthroughs" in these areas. Rutter is also recognized as contributing centrally to the establishment of child psychiatry as a medical and biopsychosocial specialty with a solid scientific base.
He published over 400 scientific papers and chapters and some 40 books. He was the European Editor for the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders between 1974 and 1994.