ABSTRACT
East Grinstead is hardly a location that is likely to feature in psychoanalytic history books, but it was there, in 1960, that an event took place which would alter the future of psychotherapy in the UK forever. The headmistress of the local primary school was undergoing a course in Scientology. Inspired by what she experienced, she was, according to the 1971 Foster Report, “reported to be taking pupils of hers aged between seven and eleven through an exercise in which they were asked to imagine they were dead and turning to dust, as a result of which one small boy was said to have fainted”. The English press had a field day. Some psychotherapy organizations began to make representations to the Department of Health (DoH) demanding something be done to restrict the practice of Scientology. The question was first raised in Parliament in 1966, when the Minister of Health was asked (again, the words of the Foster Report) “[w]hether he will initiate an Inquiry into the scope and practice in this country of so-called Scientology, and the practice of psychology for fee or reward by persons who have no medical or psychological qualifications” [my italics].
