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Remembering Felix Post: Recollections assembled by Tom Arie

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

W. A. Lishman*
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, London, (Felix's out-patient registrar, 1951)
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Abstract

Type
Obituaries
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2002

As a trainee I soon noticed that Felix's opinions about patients at the Maudsley Monday morning conferences were perhaps the best — always to the point, practical and wise. To me he emerged as the psychiatric diagnostician. Later, as a colleague, he won my respect. I marvelled at his academic output despite sustained hard clinical work. I remember my pride when we became on first name terms!

In retirement he, with Kathleen, extended great kindness and warmth to his friends, keeping in touch through thick and thin, and dismissing his infirmities with his typically somewhat incongruous sense of humour.

During the last year of his life Felix made an extensive revision of his magnum opus on creativity and psychiatric disorder, which involved detailed scrutiny of over 600 biographies of famous men. I was privileged to read the manuscript. Let us hope that it will be published posthumously.

Felix was a man of exceptional intelligence, he was modest, self-deprecating and a pioneer of a difficult speciality. Typically he set his mind against memorial services or other ephemera to mark his passing. This will not obscure the great affection he inspired.

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