ABOUT DR. VIOLA BERNARD
Dr.
Viola W. Bernard (1907-1998) dedicated her life to a conception of
psychiatry that broadened the traditional definition of
patient-therapist psychiatry to encompass the impact of the social
environment on the individual.
Graduating
from Cornell Medical College in 1936, she began her psychoanalytic and
psychiatric training at Columbia University, with which she remained
affiliated for the rest of her life. Dr. Bernard brought her skills to
bear on the social problems surrounding her, pioneering the field of
community and social psychiatry, in which she led psychiatrists in
utilizing their training to address the psychological problems embedded
in the social environment. For instance, she co-authored a major paper
on the psychological effects of the nuclear arms race, and another on
the psychological effects of racism. Concerned about the psychoanalytic
community's limited reach, she worked tirelessly to broaden the access
of disadvantaged communities to the skills of psychiatry and
psychoanalysis.
She
focused considerable energy on children's mental health and led efforts
to help adopted and foster children become better integrated into their
new surroundings.
Her
psychiatric concerns mirrored her societal and political efforts, and
these included her opposition to McCarthyism in the United States in
the1950s, rescuing children from Nazi Europe in the 1930s and 1940s
through the Wagner-Rogers Bill, and other national efforts. (See PBS
special , "THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: AMERICA & THE HOLOCAUST.")
In
addition to her efforts to improve the society in which she lived, she
was a leader in the mainstream psychiatric movement, serving as Vice
President of the American Psychiatric Association.
Dr.
Bernard served as a distinguished professor of psychoanalysis and
professor emeritus at Columbia University, where she founded the School
of Community Psychiatry. Dr. Bernard's archives are housed at the Columbia University School of Public Health,
and contain 450 collated volumes, as well audio and video records, on
the social history of New York City and national programs of social
change, in addition to her psychiatric work, research, philanthropy, and
biographical and personal papers.
Some of her work is also archived at the NIH's National Library of Medicine. Among the many awards she received for her work, she was honored by the American Psychiatric Association with both its Distinguished Service Award (1983) and its Special Presidential Commendation (1986), by the American College of Psychiatrists with its Distinguished Service Award (1986), and by the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine with its Daniel's Award (1985).
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