Michael Shepherd

Michael Shepherd (30 July 1923 – 21 August 1995) was a British psychiatrist, Professor of Epidemiological Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry (King's College London), and a consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital, London. He was the author of numerous publications in the field of psychiatry.

Early life Michael Shepherd was born on July 30, 1923, in Cardiff, into a Jewish family with roots in Odessa and Poland. He attended Cardiff High School and studied medicine at the Medical School of Oxford University and the Radcliffe Infirmary. Shepherd studied under John Ryle, a professor of Social medicine. As part of Ryle's teaching, Shepherd was asked to visit a patient at her home in Cowley to learn about the socio-medical significance of cardiac invalidism. These experiences contributed to Shepherd’s interest in exploring the social factors influencing mental disorders through systematic research. After graduating, Shepherd conducted home appointments with patients and joined the Royal Air Force to complete his National Service.

Career Shepherd began his career in psychiatry at The Maudsley Hospital in 1947. In 1954, he obtained his Doctorate in Medicine from Oxford University with a thesis studying the pattern of major psychoses in the county of Buckinghamshire during two periods, 1931–33 and 1945–47. In 1956, he joined the staff of the Institute of Psychiatry as a Senior Lecturer and was appointed to the institute's Readership in Psychiatry in 1961. In 1967, he was awarded a personal chair of epidemiological psychiatry. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1970 and a Foundation Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1971. He established the General Practice Research Unit at the Institute of Psychiatry in the late 1950s and directed its activities until his retirement in 1988.

Shepherd was influenced during his early years at The Maudsley by Aubrey Lewis, who advocated for psychiatrists to collect social data, rather than limiting their work to the clinical study of individual patients. Shepherd remained at The Maudsley for his entire professional career. He acknowledged Shepherd's contribution in clarifying the nature and extent of these disorders and stated that the findings of his research had implications for the organisation of medical services in the Britain and for medical education. Shepherd's work Psychiatric Illness in General Practice (1966) influenced this area of mental health research. Shepherd's view that mental health services could be enhanced by better training and support for GPs rather than a proliferation of psychiatrists was not universally supported by his psychiatric colleagues, but it has been endorsed by the Chief Medical Officer, World Health Organization declarations, and is part of Government strategy documents, including the 1992 publication, "The Health of the Nation".

Tackling conceptual issues in psychiatry He wrote on psychiatric classifications, psychopathology, and the causation of mental disorders, contributing to defining and clarifying conceptual issues within psychiatry. He wrote on the general psychopathology of Karl Jaspers, believing that the appeal of Jaspers' book was its breadth, extending the field of general psychopathology from the natural sciences, via phenomenology, to existentialist philosophy. He believed that psychopathology had to be explored not only through biological science but also through an analysis of what belongs to Man. Kenneth Rawnsley suggested that he identified in his mentor the qualities that he aspired to himself: intellectual integrity, scholarship, a vast range of knowledge, and a capacity for juridical thought.

Hammer of Psychoanalysis Shepherd was described by colleagues as the "Hammer of Psychoanalysis", although he was not antipathetic towards its use. In his essay entitled "Sherlock Holmes and the case of Dr Freud", he compared the Sherlock Holmes method of drawing inferences from clues with Freud's analytic method for examining the human mind, concluding that the method is intuitive and devoid of logic. He coined the term "mythod" to describe their method embedded in a myth, devoid of scientific value, and conceded that psychoanalysis might have some value as a metaphor, but challenged it as a scientific discipline. Psychological Medicine was considered "perhaps his greatest and most enduring creation, set in an academic and research career that was already distinguished".

Teacher As a teacher, he shunned didactic teaching in favor of the Socratic method of teaching. He was not aligned with the Freudian movement.

Honors and awards Michael Shepherd received the following professional recognition:

Donald Reid Medal for Epidemiology in 1982. Rema Lapouse Award of the American Public Health Association in 1983.

He was honored with: CBE in 1989. Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1990. Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1995 shortly before his death.

Family and personal life Shepherd was described as an entertaining companion with a breadth of knowledge, with interests ranging from ballet to rugby football. He took an interest in the personal lives and backgrounds of those with whom he worked. He was described as a cultured man, well-versed in literature and fluent in several languages. He married Margaret Rock, a school teacher, in 1947, and they had four children: two daughters, Catherine and Lucy, and two sons, Simon and Daniel. They raised their children in West Dulwich, south London, a short distance from Maudsley Hospital. He was affected by the death of his wife after an illness in 1992 and withdrew from public appearances. At the time of Michael Shepherd's death on 21 August 1995, he had two grandsons; his first granddaughter was born a few days after his death.

Publications A Study of the Major Psychoses in an English County, 1957; Psychiatric Illness in General Practice, 1966, London: Oxford University Press; (et al.) An experimental approach to psychiatric diagnosis, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 210. Suppl, 1968; Psychotropic Drugs in Psychiatry, 1981; Handbook of Psychiatry, 1982; Psychiatrists on Psychiatry, 1983; The Anatomy of Madness, 1985 (co-editor with William Bynum and Roy Porter); Sherlock Holmes and the Case of Dr Freud, 1985; A representative psychiatrist: the career, contributions and legacies of Sir Aubrey Lewis, Psychological Medicine Supplement 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988; Primary care of patients with mental disorder in the community, British Medical Journal, 299. 666–669, 1989 Conceptual Issues in Psychological Medicine, 1990, London: Tavistock Two faces of Kraepelin'', British Journal of Psychiatry. 167, 174–183, 1995