Bierer, Dr Joshua

Very few papers survive from Bierer's career, and there is no record of his involvement with the International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Institute of Social Psychiatry, British Association of Social Psychiatry, or Jewish organisations, nor of his hospital work.

However, the surviving papers contain a core of valuable material, especially drafts (dated 1978-1983) of Bierer's unpublished autobiography 'A Pedlar of Dreams' detailing his family background, his flight from Austria in the face of Nazism, and his approach to psychiatry.

His papers also include inter alia:

documents concerning his move to England and naturalization, 1938-1944

Runwell Hospital exhibition scrapbook, 1939

An almost complete series series of reprints by Bierer documenting his work, 1948-1983

Personal correspondence including letters from his father Josef Bierer, 1936-1937, with newscuttings on the latter's work on clinical use of x-rays

File of draft letters to Margaret Thatcher and government health ministers and bodies, late 1970s-early 1980s

(mainly on mental health policies, but also including a letter from the Prime Minister's office thanking him for his constructive proposals for a solution to the miners' dispute, 1974)

Papers on the proposed closure of Marlborough Day Hospital, c.1980

Newscuttings and photographs on Bierer's work and social psychiatry, 1940s-1970s

For further archival material relating to Dr Bierer at the Wellcome Library, see PP/SHF/E/7/1 and MS.7913/43.

1919-1984

13 boxes

The original order of the papers as acquired has been largely retained, except for minor alterations which have been recorded in the relevant catalogue records. The papers have been arranged into the following sections:

A. Personal material

B. Autobiography

C. Other writings

D. Scrapbooks and press cuttings

E. Photographs

F. Articles by others

G. Publications

Titles in "quotation marks" were written on the original files, all other titles were given by the cataloguer based on the material.

Given to the library at Wellcome Collection by Mrs Shahin Bierer, August 2009

Dr Joshua Bierer was a clinical psychiatrist and pioneer in social psychiatry, with a special interest in community care and the rehabilitation of mental patients with chronic disabilities. A follower of Alfred Adler, he was strongly opposed to Freud's theories, and also the over-use of drugs in the treatment of mental illnesses . However, he did not consider himself as an anti-psychiatrist and had reservations about RD Laing's approach, for example, noting that schizophrenics need treatment not the freedom to wallow in their delusions. His patients included Ian Fleming in 1927, and Stanley Spencer.

Bierer was born in 1901 in Radautz, Austria to a distinguished Jewish medical family, and trained in Individual Psychology with Professor Alfred Adler and Dr A. Neuer. In 1928 he was appointed to the Teaching Institute in Individual Psychology in Berlin, and subsequently carried out pioneering work in psychotherapy at mental hospitals in Vienna.

In the 1930s Bierer left Austria for Palestine and then England. In 1938 he was appointed as the first psychotherapist in a public mental hospital (Runwell, Essex). He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps for most of the Second World War. In 1946 he founded the social psychotherapy centre at Marlborough Day Hospital, the first hospital of its kind. He was also the founder and editor of the International Journal of Social Psychiatry (1955 on), as well as founder and chairman of both the Institute of Social Psychiatry and the British Association of Social Psychiatry. Dr Bierer died in 1984.

This collection has been catalogued and is available to library members. Some items have access restrictions which are explained in the item-level catalogue records.

Duplicate copies of Dr Bierer's reprints have not been retained.

Selected volumes from Dr Bierer's collection of publications (including much material on addictions, alcoholism and the practice of social pyschiatry in general) were transferred to the Wellcome Library along with his archive in August 2009.

Further papers are held at the Planned Environment Therapy Archives and Special Collections: https://archives.mulberrybush.org.uk/records/BIERER.