William Yule obituary

On March 6, 1987, the ferry Herald of Free Enterprise left the Belgian port of Zeebrugge for Dover. The bow doors were not closed and within seconds the seawater flooded. It capsized and 193 passengers and crew died.

Bill (William) Yule, who has died aged 83, was a child psychologist at the Institute of Psychiatry (now the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience) in London and head of clinical psychology at the then Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospital. He was asked to help the surviving children and he said: “It completely changed my career and my life. I have never encountered such raw emotion.”

While it was accepted in the 1980s that disasters could traumatize adults, children were thought to be highly resilient and able to get through them unscathed. However, Yule’s work has changed that consensus, and it is now accepted that children can develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and that it requires treatment: the memories are not something they can simply ‘grow out of’. Yule even liked to quote a colleague who said, “The only thing children outgrow is their clothes.”

Yule then treated children after a series of disasters, including the King’s Cross tube fire in 1987 and the sinkings of the Jupiter cruise ship off Athens and the Marchioness riverboat on the Thames in 1988 and 1989, and was able to follow them for a long time. collect valuable data over time. He also became an expert witness and represented families at inquests.

It was sometimes emotionally draining work and, considering the feelings of others, Yule began typing his own notes about the children when he realized how painful it was for the secretaries who did this work.

In 1993, UNICEF commissioned Yule to set up a mental health service in Mostar for children affected by the war in Bosnia. In a conflict situation, one-on-one therapy is not feasible, so Yule set up workshops to train school teachers in psychological techniques they could use with children.

His methods were always based on rigorous science and he became irritated when well-meaning charity workers rushed to help children in war zones, without knowing how to assess them or what could be harmful.

To provide the best evidence-based psychological care to children affected by disasters, Yule and Norwegian psychologist Atle Dyregrov founded the foundation in 2000. Children and War Foundation. They wrote five training manuals, including Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT), that teachers, parents and others can use with groups of children experiencing flashbacks, nightmares and other symptoms.

The manuals contain ‘a toolbox’ of visualization and other exercises, such as imagining that the frightening sound a child hears in his head (for example screaming) is coming from an external source, such as a radio, and that it is possible to turn down the volume.

Yule retired at the age of 65, but continued to share his expertise widely as the foundation’s programs were in high demand around the world. He had founded a trauma group in Sri Lanka to help children affected by the civil war and then the 2004 tsunami. He went to Iran after the 2003 Bam earthquake, and during the 2014 Ukraine crisis he gave workshops in Lviv on mental healthcare. professionals. The Ukrainian Ministry of Science and Education now recommends TRT in schools and they have helped thousands of Ukrainian children with war-related trauma.

In 2005 the International Association for Traumatic Stress Studies awarded Yule a Lifetime Achievement Award, and the following year the British Psychological Society awarded him an honorary fellowship, denoting special merit.

William was born in Aberdeen. His father, Peter, was a licensed grocer and his mother, Mary (née Moir), a mental health nurse. His younger sister Myrtle had learning difficulties and other psychological problems, which gave William an insight into mental health issues from an early age.

From high school in Aberdeen, William went to the University of Aberdeen to study mathematics. His intention was to become a math teacher, but he became more interested in his minor in psychology and switched in his sophomore year.

In 1962 he graduated in psychology and moved to London to complete a one-year diploma in clinical psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry. He worked with leading child psychologists Jack Tizard and Michael Rutter, and joined a team led by Rutter on the groundbreaking Isle of Wight studies: the first to look at the prevalence of educational and psychological problems in children aged nine to eleven years.

Yule was the lead psychologist for some sections on educational attainment and reading difficulties, and reading difficulties became the subject of his PhD. Later, when Tizard was very ill in 1979, Yule asked what he could do to help. “FYT!” came the answer (Finish your thesis!), which Yule did the same year.

After working under Tizard for five years at the Institute of Education, University of London, as a lecturer in child development, Yule returned to the Institute of Psychiatry in London in 1969 and became professor of applied child psychology there in 1987. His interests were wide and his output was prodigious: in addition to his work on trauma, he wrote extensively on topics such as phobias, autism, behavioral problems, language development and parenting and adoption. His research into the effect of lead in gasoline on the brains of children contributed to the ban.

He was also instrumental in raising the profile of clinical psychology as a discipline, setting up several bodies including the British Psychological Society’s Crisis, Disaster and Trauma Unit in 2013 and a national program called ‘Fostering Changes’ to support for foster carers. .

In 1967, Yule married Vivien Walters; they separated in 1969. He met Bridget Osborn, a researcher, through his work at the Institute of Psychiatry and they married in 1972. They settled in Camberwell, south London and had two children: Claire in 1975 and Alastair in 1978 .

A gentle, soft-spoken man, Yule happily entered local life and took part in the regular pantomimes performed by local residents. He was once an ‘ugly sister’ with Monty Python’s Terry Jones, in a ball gown previously worn by John Cleese. To find peace in his work, he liked to take a box of watercolors with him everywhere and paint landscapes. He also enjoyed reading thrillers and tending his garden, which to his delight appeared in a book by Ben Dark – The Grove: A Nature Odyssey in 19½ Front Gardens (2022).

He is survived by Bridget, Claire and Alastair, and his grandchildren Jayden, Annaisia ​​​​and Cooper.