|
12-19-2003 - 7:24 p.m.
Obituary thanks to our friend Ken for bringing this to my attention. It's good to be e-mail buds with a librarian December 19, 2003 Dr. Judd Marmor, Who Led Change in View of Gays, Dies at 93 By LAURIE TARKAN Dr. Judd Marmor, a psychiatrist who was influential in having homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association's official list of clinical disorders, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles, his son, Dr. Michael F. Marmor, said. He was 93. In the early 1960's, Dr. Marmor, a psychoanalyst, took the radical position that homosexuality was a variant of sexual behavior as opposed to a deviation or illness. He also contended that homosexuality had multiple roots � genetic, biological and psychosocial � and did not stem from a dysfunctional mother or a home life fraught with problems, as was the theory of the day. As the vice president of the American Psychiatric Association, he was forthright in saying that the criteria that would normally be applied for a mental illness did not apply to homosexuality. In 1974, amid a great political struggle within the association, its members voted to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, changing a position it had held for nearly 100 years. The action was considered pivotal in advancing the cause of gay rights. "His stance was particularly important because he was so widely respected and he was a psychoanalyst, which at that time held more sway," said Dr. Robert Galatzer-Levy, co-author of "The Course of Gay and Lesbian Lives." Dr. Marmor was elected president of the association later in 1974. "He was someone from the middle of mainstream American psychiatry taking a very strong position on these issues, where the only other people who were speaking out were those on the periphery," Dr. Galatzer-Levy said. Critics accused him of caving into the mounting pressure in the 1960's to treat homosexuality as normal, rather than a deviation. In an interview with The New York Times in 1986, Dr. Marmor said, "Society tends to treat male homosexuals as if they had a choice about their sexual orientation, when in fact they have no more choice about how they develop than heterosexuals do." Dr. Marmor was also influential in many other issues in psychiatry, including the trend away from pure psychoanalysis to shorter-term dynamic psychotherapy. He argued that many more people could be treated successfully in a shorter time. Dr. Marmor was also a proponent of therapy based on scientific principles, rather than theory. Judd Marmor was born in London and came to the United States a few years later with his family. He graduated from Columbia University and received his medical degree there in 1933. In 1946, he moved to Los Angeles, became a psychoanalyst and emerged as a favorite among the Hollywood elite. He held several positions, including director of psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern California. He maintained his private practice until his death. The author of more than 350 scientific papers, he also wrote or edited eight books. He wrote essays in support of civil and human rights, against McCarthyism and in opposition to the nuclear bomb and the Vietnam War. His wife, Katherine Marmor, died in 1999. They were well-known collectors of modern art. In addition to his son, Dr. Marmor is survived by two grandchildren.
| 
