Elizabeth Spillius facts for kids
Elizabeth Spillius (born Elizabeth Bott) was a smart Canadian-English woman. She studied how people think (psychology) and how societies work (anthropology and sociology). She also became a special kind of therapist called a psychoanalyst. She was born on March 3, 1924, and passed away on July 4, 2016.
Life and Studies
Elizabeth Bott was born in Canada. Her parents, Helen and Edward Bott, were both psychologists. She studied psychology at the University of Toronto. Later, she studied anthropology at the University of Chicago and earned her master's degree in 1949.
After her studies, she moved to London. There, she worked in anthropology at the London School of Economics. She also worked at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.
The Bott Hypothesis
Elizabeth Spillius is well-known for her book Family and Social Network (1957). This book came from her PhD research in 1956. She studied working-class families in East London.
In her research, she came up with an idea called the Bott Hypothesis. This idea suggests that how close a husband and wife's separate groups of friends are can affect their roles in the marriage. For example, if a husband and wife each have their own very close friends, they might have more separate roles at home. This means they might not share tasks as much. Her work also looked at how couples divide chores and how their surroundings support them.
Later Career
In 1956, Elizabeth Spillius began training to become a Kleinian psychoanalyst. This is a type of therapy that helps people understand their feelings. From 1958 to 1960, she did fieldwork in Tonga with her husband, James Spillius.
She became a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society in 1964. By 1975, she was training and supervising other psychoanalysts. From 1988 to 1998, she was an editor for a series of books called the New Library of Psychoanalysis. She also wrote several books that help explain the ideas of Melanie Klein, another famous psychoanalyst.
Works
- Elizabeth Bott. 1957. Family and Social Network. London: Tavistock.
- (editor) Melanie Klein today: developments in theory and practice, Tavistock/Routledge, 1987.
- (editor with Michael Feldman) Psychic equilibrium and psychic change : selected papers of Betty Joseph, Tavistock/Routledge, 1989.
- (editor with a preface) Melanie Klein in Berlin: her first psychoanalyses of children by Claudia Frank. Routledge, 2009.
