In Memoriam: Jules R. Bemporad M.D.

Jules Bemporad, an admired clinician and scholar, president of this Academy from 1995-1996 and Editor of this Journal from 1992-2001, died June 3, 2011 from complications of cancer. I write this in sorrow and with a personal debt of gratitude for his friendship, his gracious support, and his continued wise counsel when I followed him as Editor of this Journal in 2002.

Jules was born in Pisa, Italy on November 2, 1937. His family fled Italy under Mussolini, landing eventually in Miami and Washington Heights where he grew up. He became an American citizen in 1944. After an outstanding academic record, he eventually served from 1978-1984 as chief child psychiatrist at Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston. He served as attending psychiatrist at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, Westchester Division, from 1989-1999. He was Director of the Children's Day Hospital at the same facility from 1994-1995. Additionally, he was a supervising and training analyst, a member of the senior faculty of The Psychoanalytic Institute of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, New York Medical College.

Jules was a prolific author and wrote books and articles on Attention Deficit Disorder, autism, depression, and child psychiatry. His most famous book was Severe and Mild Depression: The Psychotherapeutic Approach (Basic Books, 1978), co-authored with his uncle, Silvano Arieti. It was listed as among the best books of 1979 by Psychology Today. With Paulina F. Kernberg he wrote the second volume of The Handbook of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, The Grade-School Child: Development and Syndromes. With David B. Herzog he wrote Psychoanalysis and Eating Disorders. He published over 30 peer-reviewed papers, mostly in this Journal.

Though Jules and I felt a mutual appreciation, our colleagueship did not extend to more social and personal dimensions. Here, from his friend Joseph Berger, is a quotation from his eulogy at Jules' funeral: