The Times
Tuesday, 02 April 2002
Page: 35, Word Count: 1405
Professor Israel Kolvin, child psychiatrist, was born on May 5, 1929. He died on March 12, 2002 aged 72.
Psychiatrist who investigated the 'cycle of deprivation' which afflicts some children and the factors that make others resilient.
Israel Kolvin was one of a small band of child and adolescent psychiatrists of his generation who made a substantial research contribution to the health of troubled children, not only in Britain but in many less privileged parts of the world. A respected clinician and university teacher, his major contribution was through his research into the causes of many childhood psychiatric disorders and how to treat them.
His first research paper, on aggression in adolescent delinquent boys, was published in 1967 and his last, an evaluation of psychotherapy for sexually abused girls, in 2002. He showed that childhood deprivation can affect future generations, that there is continuity across generations in the commission of criminal offences, that dynamic psychotherapy can make a real contribution to improving the functioning of children with psychiatric problems, that autistic children do not grow up to be schizophrenic, and that we can identify what makes children resilient in adversity and chronic illness, to name but a few of his studies.
He was chairman of the Second Opinion Panel at the Cleveland Inquiry in 1987 - the inquiry into social work and paediatric practices where intra-familial childhood sexual abuse was suspected, which was influential in changing the criteria for taking children into care and incorporated into the new Children Act 1989. When the mistreatment of institutionalised children and young adults with severe learning difficulties on the remote Greek island of Leros was exposed by British newspapers, Kolvin wasinvited by the EU and Athens University in 1991 to chair the committee of inspection and evaluation. He was influential in helping to bring about changes in the well-being of the inmates and an end to the admission ofchildren to institutions there.
Israel "Issy" Kolvin was born in Johannesburg in 1929, the youngest of five children of Jewish parents who had settled in South Africa from Poland and Germany, and showed early his intellectual gifts. His father died when he was six, and although he began his medical studies, they were interrupted for financial reasons. While earning his living, he took a BA in psychology and philosophy and saved enough to return to the University of the Witwatersrand to qualify as a doctor, supported by his wife, Rona, nwhom he married while still a student.
He was very much moved by the results of the childhood deprivation he saw as a junior doctor at Baragwanath Hospital, which set him on his lifelong career as a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Training opportunities in psychiatry were sparse in South Africa at that time, and he came to Britain in 1958, first to Edinburgh and then Oxford, where Kit Ounsted, then one of the few researchers in the field of child psychiatry, spurred him on to his first research work. This was of immense importance, since it established that children with infantile autism did not grow up to be schizophrenics. Until then it had been believed that the diseases were the same. The events at Sharpeville persuaded Kolvin and his wife that they could not return to South Africa under apartheid.
Appointed physician in charge of the Nuffield Psychology and Psychiatry Unit in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1964, Kolvin transformed an ordinary small department into one of the leading research and clinical centres in the North. Many young researchers sought to work with him and went on to become distinguished professors. In 1977 he was appointed to a personal chair in child psychiatry at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. A colleague recalls the atmosphere in Newcastle then: "There was a sense of purpose, with everyone working together. Issy had an innate sense of respect for people and never criticised them in front of others. He was able to involve and motivate people from a wide range of disciplines."
This was exemplified by one of his major projects there - a study of therapeutic interventions within school for troubled and troublesome children. It was published as a book, Help Starts Here. Thanks to Kolvin's ability to persuade reluctant headteachers and politicians to let his therapeutic team work directly with the children, they were able to establish the effectiveness of different kinds of psychotherapy in a school setting. This was the first such study to bring the rigour of a controlled trial to the evaluation of psychodynamic psychotherapy, and it continues to generate further research carried on by those trained by Kolvin in Newcastle.
Inspired by Sir Keith Joseph's famous 1972 speech on the "cycle of deprivation", Kolvin and his colleagues started in 1979 to trace the families from the Newcastle 1,000 Family Study, begun in 1947 by Spence and continued by Miller and colleagues. Originally, this had made a prospective study of the health of every child born in Newcastle during a two-month period that year. Data were available on each child throughout his or her childhood, and there had been a particular interest in the families of deprived children - those who had lost parents, or who lacked adequate food, clothing or housing, or those who were dependent on social and welfare services.
Kolvin's team studied nearly 300 of the original subjects, then aged 34, whose families had been considered deprived in the initial study, many now with children of their own. While identifying many of the factors leading to the cycle of deprivation throughout the generations, the team was also able to examine protective factors that give resilience: an equable temperament, scholastic ability, social competence, and parents who plan and provide good physical and emotional care and close and appropriate supervision. Known still as the "Red-Spot" children (from the mark on their files), this cohort, now aged 55, are part of the culture of the North-East and many have just given permission for their own children to be interviewed, so the study, still on-going, can venture into the fourth generation.
In 1996 Kolvin collaborated with Farrington at the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge in a study looking at Home Office records of the criminal careers of two generations of family members from the 1,000 Family Study, showing the high prevalence of convictions in the young adult children of the Red Spots who had criminal convictions.
In 1990, when he was nearly 61, Kolvin was appointed to the newly created Bowlby Chair in Child and Family Mental Health at the University of London, based at the Royal Free Hospital and the Tavistock Clinic. He took on a hard task. The Tavistock Clinic, renowned internationally for psychodynamic psychotherapeutic work was wary of a senior academic without an analytical training. He was able, though, in the four years before his retirement, to transform it into a prolific research institution, concentrating on developing new measures and techniques for evaluating their clinical work.
The move south gave Kolvin new impetus and he led a series of international collaborative research projects: looking at psychopathology and resilience in children from families with B-thalassaemia and haemophilia in London, Milan and Athens; obtaining a grant from Biomed, the European Research Council, for the first study in Europe comparing systemic family therapy and individual psychodynamic psychotherapy for the treatment of childhood depression in London, Athens and Helsinki; and a cross-cultural study of mother-infant patterns of behaviour which involved researchers in Japan, Hong Kong and Europe. In the eight years after his retirement he continued his research collaboration with colleagues worldwide, and completed some 16 papers in the few months before he died, despite severe ill-health.
Kolvin was dedicated to his data. He was generous in his willingness to share it with others and work collaboratively. He was tenacious in following projects through, often in the face of criticism and disappointment. He had the rare ability to enhance self-esteem in others and to inspire emulation. A compassionate physician with a strong ethical stance, he made major contributions of time and expertise to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which made him an Honorary Fellow last year. Many other honours were conferred on him too, including visiting professorships and invitations to lecture worldwide. He was also an adviser to the World Health Organisation.
He is survived by his wife, Rona, and by a son and a daughter.