Gregory Zilboorg

With Gregory Zilboorg's death, American psychoanalysis lost one of its most colorful personalities. He was a sensitive psychologist, a man of many gifts and broad cultural interests, a master of the written and spoken word. In his personal contacts he exercised a magnetic influence. His personality was full of inner contradictions, hence he was often misunderstood, but also admired.

Zilboorg's contributions to psychoanalysis and psychiatry in general were many. Among them his concept of ambulatory schizophrenia found wide acceptance. He was interested in the forensic applications of psychoanalysis and wrote widely and lucidly on this subject. His most outstanding contribution is his book, History of Medical Psychology, which became known as the most authentic and comprehensive, and at the same time the most interestingly written history of psychiatry. Zilboorg was the first to recognize clearly the significance for modern psychiatry of the contributions of the sixteenth-century Spanish religious philosopher, Vives. His historical analysis of the anachronism which the Malleus Mallificarum represented on the European cultural scene, and of the role of Weyer in combatting its sinister influence in introducing into the backward field of psychiatry the spirit of Renaissance enlightenment and humanism, are singular contributions to the history of psychiatric thought. In his book, unlike most historians of psychiatry, he succeeded in presenting the development of psychiatric concepts in the context of cultural history.