Morris Carstairs

George Morrison Carstairs (18 June 1916 – 17 April 1991) was a British psychiatrist, anthropologist, and academic. He was Professor of Psychological Medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 1961 to 1973, President of the World Mental Health Organization from 1968 to 1972, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of York from 1973 to 1978. In his youth, he had been a distinguished long-distance runner.

Early life Carstairs was born on 18 June 1916 in Mussoorie, India, then part of the British Raj. He was the son of George Carstairs (died 1948), a Church of Scotland missionary, and his wife Elizabeth Huntley Young. At the age of ten, he and his family moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. He was educated at George Watson's College, then an all-boys private school in Edinburgh. He represented Great Britain at the 1938 European Athletics Championships, coming sixth in the Men's 5000 metres with a time of 14:51.3.

In 1946 Carstairs was demobilised . In 1948–9 he was in the US as a Commonwealth Fellow. He was trained in the "culture and personality" approach to psychological anthropology in New York, by Margaret Mead.

In 1949, Carstairs joined the India Field Project organised by Gitel P. Steed for Columbia University. It was run in three Indian villages, referred to by disguised names: Carstairs was almost exclusively concerned with "Deoli" in Rajasthan, where he lived for six months in 1950, and was visited there over the summer by Steed. His residence, after his marriage in December 1950 to Vera Hunt, in Sujarupa, and later visits to India, are noted in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Two books resulted from this field work, which had Rockefeller Foundation funding 1950–1. Carstairs had a further Henderson research scholarship for support in 1951–2. His book The Twice-Born (1957) on the topic was published by the Hogarth Press and had a preface by Margaret Mead.

Psychiatrist In 1953, Carstairs began his career in psychiatry when he was appointed a senior registrar at the Maudsley Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in London, England.

In 1960, he was appointed head of a new Medical Research Council unit based at University College London. This unit led the study of psychiatric epidemiology in the United Kingdom.

From 1968 to 1972, he was President of the World Mental Health Organization. While holding that post, he was involved in the development of psychiatric facilities in under-developed countries. In one lecture he condoned pre-marital sex, which produced controversy. The 1970s were a difficult time to be involved in university leadership in the United Kingdom. The country was in recession and student protests were frequent. He had plans to expand the university both physically and in the number of subjects it taught, but because of the hostile atmosphere he faced these were not achieved during his vice-chancellorship. This experience meant that he never returned to full-time academia after leaving the post in the summer of 1978.

Later life Carstairs developed senile dementia in his later years. He withdrew from professional life, and was cared for by his first wife. He died at his Edinburgh home on 17 April 1991.