Michael Rutter

{{For multi|the health facility|Michael Rutter Centre for Children and Adolescents|the British motorcycle racer|Michael Rutter (motorcyclist)}}

{{Infobox scientist

|honorific_prefix= Professor

|name= Sir Michael Rutter

|honorific_suffix= {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE|FRS|FRCP|FRCPsych|FMedSci}}

|birth_name=Michael Llewellyn Rutter

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|birth_date={{birth date|df=y|1933|8|15}}

|birth_place= Lebanon

|death_date={{death date and age|df=y|2021|10|23|1933|8|15}}

|death_place= Dulwich, London, U.K.

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|fields= Child psychiatry

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|alma_mater= University of Birmingham Medical School

|thesis_title= Illness in parents and children

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|thesis_year= 1963

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|awards= Joseph Zubin Award {{small|(2003)}}

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|website= {{URL|https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/michael-rutter|Official website}}

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}}

Sir Michael Llewellyn Rutter (15 August 1933 – 23 October 2021) was the first person to be appointed professor of child psychiatry in the United Kingdom. He has been described as the "father of child psychiatry".[https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/michael-rutter "Professor Sir Michael Rutter CBE FRS FRCP FRCPsych, 1933 - 2021"]. King's College London.

Rutter was professor of developmental psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, and consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital, a post he held from 1966 until retiring in July 2021. A survey published in Review of General Psychology in 2002 ranked Rutter as the 68th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.{{cite journal |last1=Haggbloom |first1=Steven J. |last2=Warnick |first2=Renee |last3=Warnick |first3=Jason E. |last4=Jones |first4=Vinessa K. |last5=Yarbrough |first5=Gary L. |last6=Russell |first6=Tenea M. |last7=Borecky |first7=Chris M. |last8=McGahhey |first8=Reagan |last9=Powell |first9=John L., III |last10=Beavers |first10=Jamie |last11=Monte |first11=Emmanuelle |title=The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century |journal=Review of General Psychology |date=2002 |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=139–152 |doi=10.1037/1089-2680.6.2.139 }}

Early life

Rutter was the oldest child born to Winifred (née Barber) and Llewellyn Rutter. He was born in Lebanon where his father was a doctor, and was bilingual in English and Arabic by the age of 3. The family moved back to England when he was 4 years old. In 1940, at the age of 7, Rutter was evacuated, with his younger sister, to North America amid fears of a German invasion.{{Cite web|url=https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/development/support/thanks/600-anniversary-campaign/|title=600th Anniversary Campaign – Alumni and supporters – University of St Andrews|website=www.st-andrews.ac.uk|access-date=25 October 2021|archive-date=25 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211025212258/https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/development/support/thanks/600-anniversary-campaign/|url-status=dead}} They were sent to different households, and he had a much happier time than his sister Priscilla. They both returned to their family in 1944 {{Cite news|title=Professor Sir Michael Rutter obituary|newspaper=The Times|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/professor-sir-michael-rutter-obituary-60xs52gq7|access-date=2021-11-04|issn=0140-0460|url-access=subscription}}

Education

Rutter attended the Moorestown Friends School in New Jersey, USA. Later he attended Wolverhampton Grammar School and then Bootham School in York.{{cite book|title=Bootham School Register|place=York, England|publisher=Bootham Old Scholars Association|year=2011}}[http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U33528] Who's Who. Oxford University Press] Here a physics teacher encouraged him to read works of Freud, and he trained himself to wake up and write down his dreams. This marked the beginning of his journey into psychology. He continued his studies at the University of Birmingham Medical School, originally intending to become a GP and join his father in his practice. However, he became more interested in the relationship between the brain, mind and neurosurgery, and went into post-graduate training in neurology and paediatrics.{{Cite web|url=https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/professor-sir-michael-rutter-retires-after-55-years-at-the-ioppn|title=Professor Sir Michael Rutter retires after 55 years at the IoPPN|website=www.kcl.ac.uk}}

He was mentored by Sir Aubrey Lewis at the Maudsley Hospital in South London, who guided him towards becoming a child psychiatrist. Rutter had not realised before this point that this was a profession that would suit him well.

Career

Rutter set up the Medical Research Council (UK) Child Psychiatry Research Unit in 1984 and the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre ten years later,{{cite journal |last1=Rutter |first1=Michael |last2=Werker |first2=Janet |title=A Conversation with Michael Rutter |journal=Annual Review of Developmental Psychology |date=9 December 2021 |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=1–14 |doi=10.1146/annurev-devpsych-021821-044256 }} being Honorary Director of both until October 1998. He was Deputy Chairman of the Wellcome Trust from 1999 to 2004, and was a Trustee of the Nuffield Foundation from 1992 to 2008.{{Cite web | url=http://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/past-trustees-and-directors | title=Past Trustees and Directors | Nuffield Foundation}}

Rutter's work includes: early epidemiological studies (Isle of Wight and Inner London); studies of autism involving a wide range of scientific techniques and disciplines, including DNA study and neuroimaging; links between research and practice; deprivation; influences of families and schools; genetics; reading disorders; biological and social, protective and risk factors; interactions of biological and social factors; stress; longitudinal as well as epidemiologic studies, including childhood and adult experiences and conditions; and continuities and discontinuities in normal and pathological development. The British Journal of Psychiatry credits him with a number of "breakthroughs"{{Cite journal

|pmid=10616623

|year=1999

|last1=Kolvin

|first1=I

|title=The contribution of Michael Rutter

|journal=The British Journal of Psychiatry

|volume=174

|issue=6

|pages=471–5

|doi=10.1192/bjp.174.6.471

|doi-access=free

}} in these areas. Rutter is also recognized as contributing centrally to the establishment of child psychiatry as a medical and biopsychosocial specialty with a solid scientific base.{{cite journal |last1=Hartmann |first1=Lawrence |title=Research and Innovation on the Road to Modern Child Psychiatry, vol. 1: Festschrift for Professor Sir Michael Rutter Research and Innovation on the Road to Modern Child Psychiatry, vol. 2: Classic Papers by Professor Sir Michael Rutter |journal=American Journal of Psychiatry |date=January 2003 |volume=160 |issue=1 |pages=196–197 |doi=10.1176/appi.ajp.160.1.196 }}

He published over 400 scientific papers and chapters and some 40 books.{{Cite web|url=https://www.acamh.org/blog/a-digest-of-the-published-work-of-michel-rutter-1958-2020-2/|title=A digest of the published work of Michael Rutter 1958-2020|date=14 September 2020}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/professor-sir-michael-rutter-obituary-60xs52gq7|title=Professor Sir Michael Rutter obituary|date=28 July 2023 |via=www.thetimes.co.uk}} He was the European Editor for the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders between 1974 and 1994.{{Cite web|url=https://www.springer.com/journal/10803/editors|title=Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders|website=Springer|access-date=27 October 2021|archive-date=4 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211204161819/https://www.springer.com/journal/10803/editors|url-status=dead}}

In 1972, Rutter published 'Maternal Deprivation Reassessed',Rutter, M (1981) Maternal Deprivation Reassessed, Second edition, Harmondsworth, Penguin. which New Society describes as "a classic in the field of child care" in which he evaluated the maternal deprivation hypothesis propounded by Dr John Bowlby in 1951.Bowlby, J (1951) Maternal Care and Mental Health, World Health Organisation WHO Bowlby had proposed that "the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment" and that not to do so may have significant and irreversible mental health consequences. This theory was both influential and controversial. Rutter made a significant contribution, his 1981 monograph and other papers (Rutter 1972; Rutter 1979) constituting the definitive empirical evaluation and update of Bowlby's early work on maternal deprivation. He amassed further evidence, addressed the many different underlying social and psychological mechanisms and showed that Bowlby was only partially right and often for the wrong reasons. Rutter highlighted the other forms of deprivation found in institutional care, the complexity of separation distress and suggested that anti-social behaviour was not linked to maternal deprivation as such but to family discord. The importance of these refinements of the maternal deprivation hypothesis was to reposition it as a "vulnerability factor" rather than a causative agent, with a number of varied influences determining which path a child will take.Holmes J. (1993) John Bowlby & Attachment Theory. Routledge. pp. 49–53. {{ISBN|0-415-07729-X}}

After the end of Nicolae Ceauşescu's regime in Romania in 1989, Rutter led the English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team, following many of the orphans adopted into Western families into their teens in a series of substantial studies on the effects of early privation and deprivation across multiple domains affecting child development including attachment and the development of new relationships. The results yielded some reason for optimism.{{Cite journal|doi=10.1111/1467-8624.00388|pmid=14717240|title=Nature, Nurture, and Development: From Evangelism through Science toward Policy and Practice|journal=Child Development|volume=73|issue=1|pages=1–21|year=2002|last1=Rutter|first1=M.}}

In June 2014, Rutter was the guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Life Scientific, in which he described himself as a Nontheist Quaker, as well as revealing that, at the age of 80, he still worked each day "from about half past eight until about four".[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04581j9 Professor Sir Michael Rutter on The Life Scientific], BBC Radio 4

Rutter was professor of developmental psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London and consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital, a post he held since 1966, until retiring in July 2021.{{cite journal |last1=Rutter |first1=Michael |title=Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms. |journal=American Journal of Orthopsychiatry |date=July 1987 |volume=57 |issue=3 |pages=316–331 |doi=10.1111/j.1939-0025.1987.tb03541.x |pmid=3303954 }} A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Rutter as the 68th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. He has been described as the "father of child psychology".{{cite journal |last1=Pearce |first1=John |title=Eric Taylor: The cheerful pessimist |journal=Child and Adolescent Mental Health |date=February 2005 |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=40–41 |doi=10.1111/j.1475-3588.2005.00115.x |pmid=32806817 }}

Rutter was the first to recognise the contributions that children themselves could make to the research into child psychology. Previously their voices had not been deemed as important, though he insisted that their viewpoints did matter and that they should be listened to.

Attachment theory

Among Rutter's research topics was his extended interest in maternal attachment theory as studied in his 1974 book The Qualities of Mothering. In this book, Rutter studies the emergence of several disorders in growing children including antisocial personality disorder and affectionless psychopathology. Rutter's concentration is often reflected in his comments dealing with deprived learning environments and deprived emotional environment as these affect the child's growth. One of the principal distinctions which Rutter makes throughout his book titled The Qualities of Mothering is the difference between intellectual retardation in the child and the impairment of the emotional growth of the child as the non-development of healthy emotional growth.{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/maternaldeprivat00rutt|title=Maternal deprivation reassessed|first=Michael|last=Rutter|date=1972|publisher=[Harmondsworth] Penguin|isbn=978-0-14-080561-1 }}{{pn|date=October 2024}}{{cite journal |last1=Nadelson |first1=Carol |last2=Notman |first2=Malkah |title=Child Psychiatry Perspectives: Women, Work, and Children |journal=Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry |date=September 1981 |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=863–875 |doi=10.1097/00004583-198102000-00014 |pmid=7035527 }}

Awards and honours

Rutter had honorary degrees from the universities of Leiden, Amsterdam (University of Amsterdam UvA), Louvain, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Chicago, Minnesota, Ghent, Jyväskylä, Warwick, East Anglia, Cambridge and Yale.

Rutter was an honorary fellow of the British Academy and an elected Fellow of the Royal Society.{{Cite web|url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/michael-rutter-FBA-hon/|title=Sir Michael Rutter Hon FBA|website=The British Academy}}{{Cite web|url=https://royalsociety.org/people/michael-rutter-12215/|title=Michael Rutter | Royal Society|website=royalsociety.org}} He was a Founding Fellow of the Academia Europaea and the Academy of Medical Sciences and was knighted in the 1992 New Year Honours.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Rutter_Michael|title=Academy of Europe: Rutter Michael|website=www.ae-info.org}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/professor-sir-michael-rutter-1933-2021|title=Professor Sir Michael Rutter 1933 - 2021|website=www.kcl.ac.uk}} The Michael Rutter Centre for Children and Adolescents, based at Maudsley Hospital, London, is named after him.

In 1983 he gave the annual Swarthmore Lecture to a large gathering of British Quakers, attending their Yearly Meeting, later published as A Measure of Our Values: goals and dilemmas in the upbringing of children.{{cite book |last1=Rutter |first1=Michael |title=A Measure of Our Values: Goals and Dilemmas in the Upbringing of Children |date=1983 |publisher=Quaker Home Service |isbn=978-0-85245-170-0 }}{{pn|date=October 2024}}

In 2004 he was awarded the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology Distinguished Career Award.[https://sccap53.org/about-us/history/sccap-award-winners-division-53/ SCCAP Award Winners: Division 53], (Accessed 29 May 2018)

Personal life and death

Rutter married Marjorie Heys, a nurse, on 27 December 1958. The couple had three children.{{Cite news |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/professor-sir-michael-rutter-obituary-60xs52gq7 |title=Professor Sir Michael Rutter obituary |date=28 July 2023 |via=www.thetimes.co.uk |quote=In 1958 he married Marjorie Heys, a nurse who was the co-author of some of his books including Developing Minds: Challenge and Continuity Across the Life Span (1992). She survives him with three children who lead private lives. He was close to his seven grandchildren, though insisted that he "did not approach them as a scientist or clinician."}} His interests included fell walking, tennis, wine tasting and theatre. Rutter died at home in Dulwich, London on 23 October 2021, aged 88.{{cite web | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/science/michael-rutter-dead.html | title=Michael Rutter, Pioneering Child Psychiatrist, is Dead at 88 (Published 2021) | website=The New York Times | date=7 November 2021 }}{{cite web |url=https://twitter.com/TheLancetPsych/status/1452644308553805827|title=We are very sad to let you know that Professor Sir Michael Rutter passed away peacefully at home on Saturday, 23rd October, surrounded by his family. |publisher=The Lancet |via=Twitter |date=25 October 2021 |access-date=25 October 2021}}{{cite web |url=https://twitter.com/TheLancetPsych/status/1452644310168580096 |title=Michael was a brilliant clinician and researcher and the whole field of child development and mental health would look very different if not for him. |publisher=The Lancet |via=Twitter |date=25 October 2021 |access-date=25 October 2021}}{{cite news |last= Hess |first= Peter |date= 1 November 2021 |title= Remembering child psychiatrist Michael Rutter |url= https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/remembering-child-psychiatrist-michael-rutter/ |work= Spectrum |access-date= 5 November 2021}}

References

External links

{{cite journal |last1=Berman |first1=Philippa |title=Michael Rutter: pioneer in child psychiatry |journal=The Lancet Psychiatry |date=February 2019 |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=98 |doi=10.1016/S2215-0366(19)30007-0 |pmid=30686398 }}
[https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/professor-sir-michael-rutter-retires-after-55-years-at-the-ioppn "Professor Sir Michael Rutter retires after 55 years at the IoPPN"] at kcl.ac.uk, by Amelia Remmington, published 12 July 2021
{{cite journal |title=Interview with sir Michael rutter: interviewed by normand carrey, MD, june 9th 2010. |journal=Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry |date=August 2010 |volume=19 |issue=3 |pages=212–217 |pmid=20842277 |pmc=2938755 }}

Category:1933 births

Category:2021 deaths

Category:Academics of King's College London

Category:Attachment psychologists

Category:Autism researchers

Category:Psychiatric geneticists

Category:British child psychiatrists

Category:British psychologists

Category:Developmental psychologists

Category:Fellows of King's College London

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society

Category:History of mental health in the United Kingdom