W. H. R. Rivers

Instinct and the Unconscious (Dodo Press) W. H. R. Rivers

William Halse Rivers Rivers, FRCP, FRS, (1864-1922) was an English anthropologist, neurologist, ethnologist and psychiatrist, best known for his work with shellshocked soldiers during World War I. Rivers' most famous patient was the poet Siegfried Sassoon. He is also famous for his participation in the Torres Straits expedition of 1898, and his consequent seminal work on the subject of kinship. Rivers suffered from a stammer that never truly left him, he also had no sensory memory although he was able to visualise to an extent if dreaming, in a half-waking, half-sleeping state or when feverish. He served several terms as a ship's surgeon, travelling to Japan and North America in 1887. Back in England, Rivers gained the distinction of an M. D. (London) and was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Soon after, he became house surgeon at the Chichester Infirmary (1887-9). In 1904, with Professor James Ward and some others, Rivers founded the British Journal of Psychology of which he was at first joint editor.