Fonds F9 - Robert Pos fonds

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Robert Pos fonds

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    Fonds

    Reference code

    CA ON00008 F9

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    Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)

    Dates of creation area

    Date(s)

    • c1963-2005 (Creation)

    Physical description area

    Physical description

    11.5 cm of textual records (9 files) 4 photographs : b&w and col. ; 25.2 X 20.6 cm or smaller, two in mats 35.7 X 27.7 cm and 25.8 X 28.7 cm

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    Name of creator

    Biographical history

    Robert Pos was born the youngest of three children in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 1927. His mother was a psychiatric nurse prior to her marriage in 1919 to his father, who was a banker and stockbroker at the then Incasso Bank. Pos got his M.D. at the University of Amsterdam in 1951 and after various internships became qualified to practice medicine in the Netherlands in 1954. That same year he was invited by Dr. Aldwyn Stokes, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, to come to Toronto, Ontario. Following a junior internship at the Toronto General Hospital, he specialized in psychiatry and obtained his Diploma of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, in 1956, the certification in psychiatry from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 1958, and the Royal College's Fellowship in Medicine as modified for psychiatry in 1959. In charge of the male maximum security service at the overcrowded mental hospital at Queen Street, he introduced a multidisciplinary therapeutic team and patient counsels and led the way to opening the hospital to the community in close association with the Jewish Vocational Service which was then in its first year. In 1962 he joined the Toronto General Hospital as staff psychiatrist and soon became involved in research of narco-analysis and LSD-25 in long-term exploratory psychotherapy. His long-time interest in the relationship of physiological and psychological languages led to a Visiting Lectureship in Department of Psychiatry, University of Utrecht, and then to his Ph.D. under Dr. H. C. Rümke, Professor of Psychiatry, with his thesis 'The Psyche-Soma Complex: Its Psychology and Logic' in 1963. Dr. Pos was a clinical teacher in the University of Toronto’s Department of Medicine from 1962-1966. He was subsequently promoted to the positions of Associate in the Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry, University of Toronto (1966-1967), Assistant Professor (1967-1968), Associate Professor (1968-1973), and Professor (1973-1982) in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto. After his research in the use of narco-analysis and LSD-25 in long-term exploratory psychotherapy, he developed the Informational Underload Theory of Psychotic Decompensation for which Dean J. McCreary, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, awarded him the National Research Award 1964 of the Canadian Mental Health Association. This enabled him to develop a neurophysiological research laboratory in the Banting Institute, first under the neurosurgeon Dr. Ronald Tasker, then on his own. In 1966 Pos attended the Psychiatric Research Institute of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Medicine in Moscow, as Visiting Scientist, and became the first Canadian to publish two papers in the Korsakav Journal. As Chairman of the General Hospital Committee in the Faculty of Medicine Pos played a leading role in Toronto teaching hospitals in transforming their Divisions of Psychiatry within the Departments of Medicine to independent General Hospital Departments. In 1968 he became the Toronto General Hospital’s first Psychiatrist-in-Chief. As such he developed a staff of eleven full-time psychiatrists with an inpatient, outpatient, emergency, and community service, a research division and a division of psychology. He held that position until 1975 when he resigned and become Senior Psychiatrist, Toronto General Hospital. In 1975-1976, he took a sabbatical year at his farm north of Owen Sound, working as Editor-in-Chief and later as Chairman of the Editorial Board on an undergraduate psychiatric textbook, 'A Method of Psychiatry,' that was later published in 1980. Dr. Pos also acted as a consultant to the Mental Health Centre in Pentanguishene, Ontario (1978-1982) and as a consultant to the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto, Ontario (1976-1982). While in Owen Sound, Dr. Pos became Director & Chief of Psychiatry at the General & Marine Hospital in 1978, a position he held until 1981. There he developed a psychiatric staff of nine, including a child psychiatrist and an adolescent psychiatrist, and set up a community service which eventually emptied the local mental hospital, the MacKinnon Phillips Mental Hospital, to become a general hospital unit in preparation of the merger with the Owen Sound General & Marine Hospital. In 1981, Dr. Pos resigned as Director of Psychiatry and was subsequently appointed as the Psychiatrist-in-Charge of the Alcoholism Service at General & Marine Hospital in Owen Sound, Ontario (1981-1982). In 1982, Dr. Pos moved to Vancouver and joined the Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission of British Columbia. Soon he became Chairman of the Task Force on Reorganization. In 1983 he became both Psychiatrist-in-Chief of the Forensic Psychiatric Institute in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, and Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. He increased the Institute’s staff considerably and modeled its functioning along academic lines. In 1984 he became Director of the entire Adult Clinical Services of the Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission in British Columbia. Meanwhile, Dr. Pos became involved in 16 dangerous offenders hearings leading to indeterminate sentences (including the first violent and the first sexual dangerous offender hearings in Newfoundland), 11 insanity defenses, five automatism defenses, and 16 other psychiatric defenses in well-known criminal cases. He also participated in numerous remand and fitness hearings and was nominated or consulted in seven school districts under the School Act of British Columbia. Because of policy differences between Dr. Pos on the one hand, and the leadership of the Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission and the Department of Health of British Columbia on the other, he was forced to leave the Forensic Service in 1987 and started a private practice in Vancouver with emphasis on long-term reconstructive therapy. He functioned also as Psychiatric Consultant at the Vancouver Pre-trial Service Centre of British Columbia Corrections from 1984 until 1991. While working for the Forensic Service, Pos had become aware of and fascinated by the two distinct and unique ways in which forensically involved persons experience time. Having returned to full-time private practice, he realized, however, that this time-gender duality was present in all people. He began his research in this area in earnest in the summer of 1988 and after 16 years published an electronic book on this topic entitled 'The Gender Beyond Sex: Two distinct Ways of Living in Time.' (2004). After he retired from clinical practice in September 1997, he and his spouse, Marie Becker-Pos, artist and counselling psychologist, moved back and forth between Toronto, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia, until March 2004 when they settled in Vancouver.

    Custodial history

    Scope and content

    Fonds consists primarily of articles, papers, and other publications authored or co-authored by Dr. Pos especially concerning his doctoral research regarding the psyche-soma complex, subsequent research concerning the informational underload theory, D. Campbell Meyers, and the history of the Toronto General Hospital particularly in relation to its psychiatric ward. Also includes some correspondence regarding a paper Dr. Pos wrote about the Ward Clinic at the Toronto General Hospital, a position paper concerning ethical dilemmas in relation to forensic psychiatry, and a curriculum vitae.

    Notes area

    Physical condition

    Immediate source of acquisition

    Fonds was donated by Dr. Robert Pos in Sept. 1992.

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      Script of material

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        Restrictions on access

        Open

        Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication

        When using this fonds for research purposes, researchers must use the following citation in accordance with specific stipulations made between the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Archives and the donor: CAMH Archives: Robert Pos fonds, [file number].

        Finding aids

        Finding aid is available in hard copy, MS Word, and database formats.

        Associated materials

        Includes the sous-fonds for Toronto General Hospital Nervous Wards records.

        Related materials

        Accruals

        A small accrual to the fonds was donated by Dr. Pos in Sept. 2005.

        General note

        Some material is in Dutch.

        General note

        Title is based on the content of the fonds.

        General note

        The biographical sketch is a slightly revised version of the biographical sketch from Dr. Pos’ website (cited below) combined with information from his curriculum vitae.

        General note

        The file titles appear to have been assigned by a previous Archivist of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Archives.

        General note

        Includes the sous-fonds for Toronto General Hospital Nervous Wards records.

        General note

        The following item has been removed to the bibliographic collection: Pos, Robert. The gender beyond sex : two distinct ways of living in time. Vancouver: PBW Management Corporation, 2005.

        General note

        References: Pos, Robert. n.d. Robert Pos, M.D. (1927-): Canadian psychiatrist and research scientist. Accessed 8 August, 2005. Available from http://robertpos.info.

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