Each year, the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences invites a distinguished scholar to speak on campus as part of the Robert S. Wallerstein Visiting Lectureship in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. This lecture series is held in honor of the late Robert S. Wallerstein, MD, and focuses on showcasing psychoanalytic knowledge and clinical expertise that influence psychiatry, psychotherapy, and psychoanalysis.
The 2023 Robert S. Wallerstein Lecture in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences hosted the 17th Robert S. Wallerstein Lecture in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy on Wednesday, April 12, 2023, at the UCSF Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building. The event's keynote lecture, "Recovery From Psychological Damage Caused by Trauma and Loss," was delivered by 2023 honoree Mardi Horowitz, MD. The event also featured a case study presented by Kathryn DeWitt, PhD, as well as a Q&A with audience members featuring Dr. Horowitz, Dr. DeWitt, Jonathan Shedler, PhD, and Joseph A. Zamaria, PsyD, ABPP.
About this year's honoree
Mardi Horowitz, MD, is a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at UCSF and the author of 20 professional books in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. He has provided forensic consultations in the fields of PTSD, stress, personality, and psychotherapy. In addition, he has provided consultation to the media and governmental agencies as a highly respected clinician, researcher, and educator.
He has been president of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis and the International Society for Psychotherapy Research. Dr. Horowitz has directed the NIMH Center for the Study of Neuroses and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Program on Conscious and Unconscious Mental Processes, and is a founding member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the Society to Explore Psychotherapy Integration.
He has received numerous awards, including the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies' Pioneer Award (1983) for his achievements in developing the diagnoses of PTSD and disorders of complicated grief, and the American Psychiatric Association (APA)'s Foundation's Fund Prize (1980) for "distinguished contribution to an understanding of the psychological processes following serious life events and of the adaptive changes facilitated by psychotherapy.” Dr. Horowitz has also been honored with the J. Elliott Royer Award in Psychiatry (1977), the Northern California Psychiatric Society's Outstanding Achievement Award (1989), and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies' Lifetime Achievement Award (2004). He was named an APA Distinguished Life Fellow in 2000.
Dr. Horowitz's seminal book, Stress Response Syndromes: PTSD, Grief, Adjustment, and Dissociative Disorders, is now in its fifth edition and has been published in multiple languages. He has written numerous other professional books — including States of Mind: Configurational Analysis of Individual Personality, Personality Styles and Brief Psychotherapy, Nuances of Technique in Dynamic Psychotherapy, Identity and the New Psychoanalytic Explorations of Self-Organization, and Adult Personality Growth in Psychotherapy — as well as more than 280 scientific articles in the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy. He has also published two books written for a nonprofessional audience, A Course in Happiness and Grieving as Well as Possible.
In addition to his scholarly and professional pursuits, Dr. Horowitz trained at the San Francisco School of Fine Art (now known as the San Francisco Art Institute) and is a member of ICB Artists Association in Sausalito. He is skilled in drawing, oils, and sumi-e painting, and many of his works have lined the hallways and offices of the Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital for a number of years.
Previous lectureship honorees
- 2021 - Alicia F. Lieberman, PhD (video)
- 2019 – Mark Solms, PhD (video: part 1 | part 2)
- 2018 - George Silberschatz, MD (video: part 1 | part 2)
- 2017 - Deborah L. Cabaniss, MD
- 2016 - Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD
- 2015 - Beatrice Beebe, PhD
- 2014 - Morris Eagle, PhD
- 2013 - Regina Pally, MD
- 2012 - Robert Michels, MD
- 2011 - Arietta Slade, PhD
- 2010 - Salman Akthar, MD
- 2009 - Peter Fonagy, PhD, FBA
- 2008 - Glen O. Gabbard, MD
- 2007 - Nancy McWilliams, PhD, ABPP
- 2006 - Otto F. Kernberg, MD
About Robert S. Wallerstein, MD
Robert S. Wallerstein, MD
Robert S. Wallerstein, MD, (1921—2014) was a distinguished psychiatrist, psychotherapy researcher, and psychoanalytic leader who left a legacy of a widened scope of theory and technique in the psychological sectors of psychiatry. He was an administrator who advocated for cooperation between psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers in achieving academic excellence and sought to develop a new profession, the Doctor of Mental Health. He also developed a departmental structure that worked across professional lines, leading to new ideas on research centers, educational plans, and high quality service delivery.
Dr. Wallerstein trained at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas, rising to become the foundation’s director of research and conducting a pioneering study called the Psychotherapy Research Project. He moved to the Bay Area in 1966 as the chief of psychiatry at Mount Zion Hospital, then joined the faculty of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry as a professor. Dr. Wallerstein served as department chair and director of the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute from 1975-1985, as well as a training and supervising analyst at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, and president of both the American and International Psychoanalytic Associations.
In addition, he was a prodigious and influential author who penned 20 books and more than 400 scholarly articles. His books included Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: Theory, Practice, Research (1975), Becoming a Psychoanalyst (1981), Forty-Two Lives in Treatment (1986), The Talking Cures: The Psychoanalyses and the Psychotherapies (1995), Lay Analysis: Life Inside the Controversy (1998), Psychoanalysis: Clinical and Theoretical (1999), and Psychoanalysis: Education, Research, Science, and Profession (2003). In recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of psychoanalysis, he received the prestigious Sigourney Award in 1991.
Dr. Wallerstein was a leader by consensus. With a remarkable ability of synthesis, he strived to bring together diverse schools of theory and treatment technique. He will be remembered as a dynamic and tireless leader who contributed extensively to every organization that he led.
Lectureship committee
- Joseph Zamaria, PsyD, ABPP, chair
- Kathryn DeWitt, PhD
- Amy Wallerstein Friedman, LCSW
- Adam Goldyne, MD
- Mary Susan Hansen, MD
- Mardi Horowitz, MD
- Marc Jacobs, MD
- Jonathan Shedler, PhD
- George Silberschatz, PhD
- Katherine Straznickas, PhD
- William Wolfe, MD
