Obituary: Dr. Cathy Urwin, born 13 September 1949, died 2 June 2012

Cathy Urwin, originally a developmental psychology researcher, who trained and worked as a child psychotherapist and was, for a time, book review editor for this journal, died, after a short illness, on 2 June 2012. Her clinical acumen, her passion for research and for psychoanalysis and her extraordinary energy in supporting and developing child psychotherapists in training will be sorely missed.

Cathy's research work in developmental psychology which included her doctoral thesis on the development of communication and language in blind babies, led her to work with such eminent figures as Jerome Bruner, Colwyn Trevarthen and John and Elizabeth Newsom. She held an academic post at Warwick University and a senior research fellowship in the Childcare and Development Group at Cambridge. She decided to train as a child psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic, and while she was training, she also taught child development research to students on the PG Diploma/MA in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies.

She held two major clinical posts as a child psychotherapist, one in Tower Hamlets from 1989 to 2006, and then from 2006 until her death, in the Child and Family Department at the Tavistock Clinic. In Tower Hamlets she worked a lot with young children who were diagnosed autistic, and began to distinguish between those with specific language and communication difficulties, those with features which appeared similar to autism and those who were truly on the autistic spectrum.

Her deep understanding of child development and of the internal world were brought together to help many children and their families; she supported the development of child psychotherapists in training as well as other colleagues and initiated outcome research on the hopes and expectations of parents and clinicians for children in psychotherapy. Many children with developmental delay, expressive language difficulties and autistic features were helped directly by Cathy and trainees and others whom she supervised. She was open, active, playful and containing in the support of development of their sense of self, lessening anxiety and supporting the development of language and more symbolic play.

At the Tavistock Clinic she worked in the Autism Service, coordinated the Autism Workshop and was an influential supervisor to a number of child psychotherapists in training as well as clinical and educational psychologists who had placements in the team.

Cathy Urwin presented and published widely. She had recently spent a term with researchers in Norway. She also worked with an international group who met regularly to discuss clinical material from autistic patients and was involved in a number of collaborative research projects. One project of significance for readers of this journal is ‘Babies in Groups’, (http://www.tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/big) with Alana Loewenberger, Prof Ben Bradley, and Dr Jane Selby. This project includes some fascinating and revealing video footage. She had just completed, as co-editor with Janine Sternberg, Infant Observation and Research: Emotional Processes in Everyday Lives, which is reviewed in this volume by Margaret Rustin.

Cathy was fascinated by everything about the development of babies and children; she was eager to use infant observation in research, including a project which led to a paper in this journal in 2007, ‘Doing infant observation differently? Researching the formation of mothering identities in an inner London borough’.

Cathy's sudden, untimely death occurred at a particularly creative and productive time in her life. She was working indomitably and enthusiastically on a number of projects, researching, writing, teaching and working clinically, loved nothing better than working in groups and teams with others. She also loved life. Cathy was much loved and respected. All who knew her, family, friends, colleagues and collaborators are shocked and saddened at her loss.

Trudy Klauber

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