Julian Leff: innovator in the treatment of schizophrenia
BMJ 2021; 372 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n831 (Published 26 March 2021) Cite this as: BMJ 2021;372:n831
- John Illman
- London, UK
- john{at}jicmedia.org
If anyone was born to be a radical, it was the polymath Julian Leff, one of the most creative psychiatrists of his generation, and a pioneer in the treatment of schizophrenia and in the development of social and cultural psychiatry. (He also studied silk screening, ceramics, sculpture, and silver smithing.)
Family background
His communist father, Sam, was one of the NHS founders and author of The Health of the People (1950) and The School Health Service (1959). His mother, also a communist, the novelist Vera Levy, was one of the three founder members of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Her books include Going Our Way (1945) a romantic novel about the Socialist Medical Association.
Sam and Vera met on the Jarrow March in 1936 when some 200 hungry, foot sore men in their Sunday best walked some 300 miles from the north east to Hyde Park, London, to highlight the misery of poverty, overcrowding, poor housing, and high mortality.
Born above his father’s surgery in Archway, north London, near where Dick Whittington was urged to turn again, Leff inherited from his parents a deep rooted conviction about the fundamental importance of family and environment on mental …
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