Ian Craib
Ian Ernest Craib (12 December 1945 – 22 December 2002) was an English sociologist and psychotherapist. He was educated at Trinity School of John Whitgift, and the South Bank Polytechnic, eventually receiving his doctorate at the Victoria University of Manchester. He went on to join the University of Essex in 1973, eventually rising to the chair of Professor of Sociology. During his time at the University, he gained an international reputation in sociology, and is widely read as a theoretician who ably links sociology and psychoanalysis. In the mid-1980s, he received qualification as a psychotherapist and group analyst, bringing together his interests in the reciprocal effects between individuals, groups and societies. In the late 1980s he was central — along with Karl Figlio, Joan Busfield, Ken Plummer and John Walshe — to the creation of a master's degree in Sociology and Psychotherapy, organised jointly by the University of Essex and the Mental Health Trust. This was one of the first university courses of its type in the country, combining clinical experience with theoretical thinking. Craib's working-class origins influenced his understanding of class systems and the politics of power, and this partly explains his attachment in his late teens to Trotskyite