Born and raised in Scotland, Isabel Menzies took a double first in economics and experimental psychology at St Andrews in 1939, and became a lecturer there from 1939-45.[1] During the war she became involved with the group around W. R. Bion studying social dynamics in officer training at the War Office Selection Boards and in the relationships of prisoners of war at Civil Resettlement Units. Menzies then moved to London to join them at the Tavistock Institute;[2] qualified as a psychoanalyst in 1954; and underwent a second training analysis with Bion himself.