Harry M. Tiebout (2 January 1896 – 2 April 1966) was an American psychiatrist who promoted the Alcoholics Anonymous approach to the public, patients and fellow professionals. He served on the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous from 1957 to 1966 and was president of the National Council on Alcoholism from 1951 to 1953.
Early life and education
Harry Tiebout was raised in Brooklyn, New York. He earned his bachelor's degree at Wesleyan University in 1917, then went to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he also completed an internship with a specialization in psychiatry. The psychiatry service at Hopkins was led by Adolf Meyer, who had an eclectic approach in which Freudian theory was contributory but not dominant. John B. Watson was also at Hopkins during the time Tiebout was there, conducting research in behaviorism which had substantial influence on the field of child development during the 1920s.
Clinical work
Tiebout was on the staff of New York Hospital, Westchester Division from 1922 to 1924. He began work in child guidance clinics in New York City, joining the Institute for Child Guidance as staff psychiatrist shortly after it was founded in 1927. The institute was a well-funded center for training and research, dominated by psychoanalysis and specializing in "exhaustive case histories 75 pages long." During these years Tiebout was also on the staff of Cornell Medical School and the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic.
In 1935, he became medical director of Blythewood Sanitarium in Greenwich, Connecticut. Privately owned, Blythewood was situated on a beautiful, rustic estate once owned by Boss Tweed. At its peak, it had eight main buildings, eight cottages, a chapel, a building for occupational therapy, and a small golf course. There were no bars on the windows. Artistic and cultural pursuits were encouraged as part of the therapeutic program. Although the sanitarium was primarily for care of the mentally ill, it also provided care for alcoholics.
In 1939, Tiebout received a pre-publication copy of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. After looking it over, he gave it to Marty Mann, one of his patients. She had been at Blythewood for over a year but seemed no closer to conquering her alcohol problem than when she arrived, so he considered her a good test of whether the book had value. At first, she read the book eagerly, delighted to know for the first time that there was a name (alcoholism) for what ailed her. However, she was soon repelled by the overbearingly religious message and told Tiebout that she could never accept it. Tiebout, according to Mann's biographers Sally and David Brown, quietly encouraged her to keep reading. Eventually taking the book to heart, she had an epiphany during a crisis of resentment and fury.
Other references, also based on Mann's recollections, portray Tiebout's role a little differently. They describe an ongoing verbal battle lasting several months, in which Tiebout refused to accept Marty's rejection of the book. In the end, Mann did become an active member of AA and within a few years made education about alcoholism, and promotion of alcohol-abuse treatment, her second career. With Tiebout's support, she founded the National Council on Alcoholism (NCA).
Tiebout also became a friend and supporter of AA founder Bill Wilson, providing personal psychiatric care when Wilson developed depression in the 1940s. It was largely through Tiebout's influence that Wilson was invited to speak at a New York state medical society meeting and then at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, and had his talk published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Alcoholism: Approach to the patient
Tiebout had many years of training and experience in the management of alcohol problems before his first exposure to Alcoholics Anonymous. However, his earliest detailed article concerning alcoholism was published in 1944, 5 years into his relationship with AA, and is primarily a description of AA itself. Over the next 10 years, he published a number of articles outlining his theories about alcoholism, the psychodynamic causes of the disorder and his reasons for endorsing AA as the definitive solution.