FRANK, Jerome D(avid) 1909–2005

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born May 30, 1909, in New York, NY; died of complications from dementia, March 14, 2005, in Baltimore, MD. Psychiatrist, educator, activist, and author. Frank was a noted researcher, professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University, and anti-nuclear arms activist. A graduate of Harvard University, he completed his undergraduate work in 1931, earned a Ph.D. in 1934, and finished his medical degree there in 1939. During World War II he taught at Johns Hopkins University and served with the army in the Philippines; after the war his interest in the psychological effects of battle were stirred further by his work as a research associate for the Veterans Administration. These experiences and his knowledge of the horrors of the nuclear weapons used against Japan later led to his activism against nuclear arms. He consequently helped to found the Physicians for Social Responsibility. After teaching for a year at Howard University, Frank returned to Johns Hopkins in 1949 as an associate professor of psychiatry. He became a full professor in 1959 and retired in 1974. Having worked as a clinical associate professor for the outpatient department at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he was especially interested in methods of psychotherapy treatment. His Persuasion and Healing: A Comparative Study of Psychotherapy (1961) has been one of the most influential texts in the field, helping to liberalize ideas about treatment, and it has been credited with spurring the development of such concepts as family and supportive psychotherapy. The third edition of the book, published in 1991, was written with his daughter, Julia Frank. The recipient of the first Oscar Pfister prize from the American Psychiatric Association, Frank was also the author of such books as Group Methods in Therapy (1959), The Threats to Man: The Challenge of Ethics (1965), and Psychotherapy and the Human Predicament: A Psychosocial Approach (1978).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Washington Post, March 19, 2005, p. B5.

ONLINE

JHU Gazette Online, http://www.jhu.edu/∼gazette/ (April 18, 2005).