History

While the Hospital's psychiatric case records date back to 1852 when the first Jewish immigrants with mental illness were admitted to the Hospital, the real story of the Department of Psychiatry begins 40 years later. In 1893, a young immigrant named Dr. Bernard Sachs was asked to consult on a few cases. Sachs had trained in Vienna and was among the first doctors to share the intriguing new theories of his friend, Dr. Sigmund Freud, with his American colleagues. Sachs was best known for helping describe Tay-Sachs disease, but his family fortune—his brother founded the Goldman-Sachs investment company—allowed for the construction of the Hospital’s first neurology wing, boasting 20 beds, at the turn of the century.

Three years later, the Hospital opened the first private outpatient psychiatric clinic in the city. The director was psychoanalyst Dr. Clarence P. Obendorf, one of the founders of the New York Psychoanalysis Society. Obendorf had trained at Manhattan Psychiatric Hospital, and his mentor, Dr. A. A. Brill, had been among the few who had traveled to Clark University in 1909 to hear Freud speak. Although Freud never returned to America, his ideas were becoming the foundation for psychiatry in New York.

Sachs’ 20-bed neurology department treated only an occasional psychiatric patient (many such patients were still being sent either to jail or to state asylums), and by the time Sachs was heading the neurology department, he had become critical of psychoanalysis.

However, the next neurology chair changed the patient mix. In 1920, Dr. Israel Strauss joined the staff with plans to create a facility for patients with mental illness. These would be patients not sick enough to enter state hospitals but too ill to remain at home. Raising enough money to buy an estate on a hill in Hastings, in Westchester County, Strauss opened a spacious residence for psychiatrically ill patients, complete with gardens and tennis courts. Group therapy was introduced there in 1930.

After a few years, it was clear that the demand for beds was far greater than the 40-bed retreat at Hastings Hillside could offer, so Strauss and Dr. Louis Wender, Hillside’s director, searched for a new home. They finally settled on a 52-acre tract in Queens, and in 1942 opened Hillside Hospital with 28 beds. Years later it became part of Long Island Jewish Medical Center.

Back in Manhattan, Strauss passed the torch to Dr. Israel Wechsler, who decided to expand the role of psychiatry in the neurology department even further. Wechsler brought in Dr. Lawrence Kubie, an analyst trained at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, who had plans to use Mount Sinai as a blueprint for psychiatry in general medicine.

So it was that psychiatrists in the 1930s, roamed the floors of the Hospital, stopping to plumb the souls of cancer and heart patients. Indeed psychiatrists did their rounds at the Hospital, probing, talking, and thinking. Their job was to help patients come to terms with their illnesses and strengthen the bonds with their doctors.

After the war, psychiatrists realized that, for the field to flourish, they needed to be separate from neurology. In 1945, with interest in psychiatry growing nationally, Dr. M. Ralph Kaufman arrived to chair the new department. A ward for psychosomatics was opened, and a fleet of area psychiatrists would make rounds and provide advice on a variety of ills from asthma to headaches to peptic ulcers.

The psychoanalytic approach steamed ahead well into the 1960s. However, when Dr. Marvin Stein took over in 1971, medicine had changed the face of mental illness; doctors were discovering more biologically-based clues as to what was causing the bizarre behaviors and emotions that plagued the people who filled their beds.

As a new chairman, Stein had enough money in his budget to hire one full-time academic psychiatrist. For the next 15 years, he added psychiatrist after psychiatrist, slowly building on the new science of the mind and ushering in the age of biological psychiatry, not to supplant, but to join older theories in union.

In 1987, Dr. Kenneth Davis became Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry. His leadership has ushered in a period of growth and expansion unparalleled in the Department’s history. Space has been upgraded, programs enlarged, and the full-time faculty has grown to well over one hundred. Dr. Davis’ guidance has led to the creation of a multitude of internationally respected programs that now flourish in schizophrenia, personality disorders, autism, depression, alcoholism, attention deficit disorders, impulsive and compulsive disorders, stress disorders, geriatrics, memory disorders, and Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, the Department is now home to a variety of programs in such areas as molecular genetics, neuroimaging, community psychiatry, health services research, and psychoanalytically-oriented psychotherapy. Most of these programs house ambitious research programs as well. Due to his outstanding accomplishments in the Department of Psychiatry, in 2003 Dr. Kenneth Davis was named President and CEO of The Mount Sinai Medical Center as well as Dean of The Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

In 2003, Dr. Jack Gorman became Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry. Under his leadership, the Department has maintained and expanded programs in schizophrenia, Alzeheimer's disease, traumatic stress disorders, personality disorders, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders. In addition, the Department has developed an extensive and innovative program in mood and anxiety disorders research as well as adding a new substance abuse amenities unit called Madison East, which is the only one of its kind in New York City. In child psychiatry, the Department has developed programs in eating disorders, health services research, and traumatic stress disorders. Dr. Gorman's guidance has led to a stronger affiliation with the New York Psychoanalytical Institute and added core foundation programs in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). The Department has expanded consultation and HIV psychiatry, adding new faculty and new grants. It has also expanded research in translational neuroscience and neuroimaging. Overall, the Department has opened up new opportunities for medical students and residents in research programs. It continues to attract the finest medical students and fellows in psychiatry and child psychiatry as evidenced by their dominance in the roster of national awards.