On Wednesday 12th December 2012 the Tavistock Institute hosted over 60 people in celebration of the life and work of Dr Mannie Sher, the Institute’s Director of the Group Relations programme.
Mannie Sher, a long-standing Principal consultant and researcher at the Institute has just published his new book, soon to be sited as a seminal work, based on his PhD thesis, entitled: The Dynamics of Change: Tavistock Approaches to Social Systems.
From the opening remarks of the hostess, Eliat Aram, the Institute CEO:
‘This celebration was not just a book launch for us. It is a celebration of life time work, thought and intellectual advancements to the understanding of societal processes that Mannie has contributed to. The nicest thing is that everyone who is here today has had Mannie on their side at some point in their lives, to support, to challenge, to mentor, to supervise, to father, to husband, to grandfather, to creatively develop new practice, to deal with the ‘so what?‘ question.
The book is an artefact that brings together in wonderful harmony – which has not been the case whilst the work took place – psychoanalytic, systemic, action and inquiry oriented concepts that Mannie makes sense of in his usual passionate, diligent and conscientious way.
Mannie – like a true Tavistockian – would never be interested in any work or concept if it didn’t mean something in practice, if it wasn’t applicable. From psychotherapy to education, from group relations to organisational and change consultancy to executive development and coaching for leadership, from health, social and faith organisations to financial and manufacturing organisations – Mannie’s book is a living written testament to his wide-spread, magical, touch”.
Good friends and colleagues, family members and clients, TIHR trustees and staff all gathered to celebrate Mannie’s life achievement and a select group of these gave moving and emotional speeches in Mannie’s honour. Dr Kathleen White who travelled from New York, Dr Hüseyin Özdemir who travelled from Germany, David Armstrong, Coreene Archer, Shanan Sher and Danny Sher were amongst those who contributed. Letters by people who couldn’t make the date were read out courtesy of Institute staff including Rachel Kelly, Leslie Brissett, Shaun Doidge and David Drabble. Olivia Joyner was in charge of photography and Juliet Scott opened a twitter entitled ‘#sharingmannie’.
We enjoyed good food and music played by Petra Kahle, a classical guitar student from Trinity College of Music, London.
It was a memorable evening and we are all very grateful to Mannie for giving us such tremendous cause for celebration.
More photos of the event can be found on our Facebook page.