Mildred Newman | |
---|---|
Born | Mildred Rubenstein[1]: 279 1919 or 1920 |
Died | (aged 81) |
Alma mater | Hunter College |
Mildred Newman (née Rubenstein), was an American psychologist and author known for her self-help books.
Newman's mother was from Russia,[2] and Newman grew up in Manhattan.[3] Newman gained an undergraduate degree (1940) and a master's degree (1943) from Hunter College.[4] Prior to working as a psychologist, Newman spent time studying modern dance and was an artists' model.[1]: 279 She trained as a psychoanalyst at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, which was founded by Theodor Reik.[1]: 280 [4]
Newman started her psychoanalyst practice in New York City in the middle of the 1950s.[5] She realized that her patients needed a place to have positive feedback, and in 1971 she and her husband Bernard Berkowitz started a book that became How to Be Your Own Best Friend.[5] In 2018, an article in the New York Post attributed the self-help industry that followed back to this 1971 book.[5]
Newman worked with many clients, starting with Paula Prentiss,[1]: 280–281 Anthony Perkins,[1]: 283–284 George Segal, Neil Simon, Nora Ephron, and others.[6] She and her husband treated so many celebrities that they were known as "therapists of the stars".[2] She and her husband also participated in social events with her clients.[1]: 287–288
Newman was a proponent of conversion therapy, famously treating Perkins with electroshock to supposedly "cure" his homosexuality; for this, Perkins' friend and collaborator Stephen Sondheim described her to author Mark Harris as "completely unethical and a danger to humanity."[7][8]
Her first husband was Philip Newman, though they later divorced.[when?][1]: 280 She met her second husband, Bernard Berkowitz as a teenager[2] waiting in line for a concert, and they married in 1962.[1]: 280 By 1978 they were sharing recipes in a newspaper article that was one of a series on celebrity recipes.[9] Newman died of a pulmonary embolism on November 6, 2001, aged 81.[3][4]