Erich Lindemann.
The Center for the History of Medicine is pleased to announce that processing of the Erich Lindemann papers is nearing completion. Lindemann (1900-1974) was Chief of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, and Medical Director of the Wellesley Human Relations Service, Massachusetts.
Lindemann is known for his preventive intervention work with crisis patients and subjects of loss and bereavement. His work with burn victims of the Cocoanut Grove fire of 1942 inspired his interest in the psychiatric and physiological effects of crisis, grief, and loss. He later directed a study of the effects of loss and disruption on the displaced families of Boston’s West End redevelopment, the results of which later informed urban redevelopment projects across the country. Lindemann is also recognized as a pioneer in the field of community mental health, advocating for collaboration between psychiatrists, psychologists, physicians, social workers, clergymen, teachers, and other community social service providers in the preventive therapy of crisis victims. As a part of these efforts, he established a community mental health training program for social service providers at Massachusetts General Hospital, helped found the nation’s first community mental health agency in 1948 (the Wellesley Human Relations Service), and chaired multiple professional and national committees related to community mental health and preventive psychiatry.
The collection contains Lindemann’s professional correspondence, his writings and publications, correspondence and records related to his professional service on various committees, interview surveys of dislocated West End residents, and the administrative and research records of the Wellesley Human Relations Service (1948-1973, bulk) and of the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Psychiatry (1940-1973, bulk). The collection also contains over 350 audio-visual recordings of lectures, seminars, and meetings of Lindemann and his colleagues.
Processing of the collection is a part of the Private Practices, Public Health: Privacy Aware Processing to Maximize Access to Health Collections project, funded by a Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through the Council on Library Resources (CLIR). The project is a collaborative effort between the Center and the Chesney Medical Archives at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, on behalf of the Medical Heritage Library, to open public health collections previously closed to research, and to determine best practices for providing access to collections with protected health information and other types of restricted records. The collection is expected to open to research in late 2013.