Dr. Elizabeth Rosenberg Zetzel, a prominent psychoanalyst who was a Vice President of the International Psycho-Analytical Association and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard School of Medicine, died on January 23, 1971, at the age of 63. A native of New York, Dr. Zetzel attended Smith College and then went to London, where she first studied at the London School of Economics, and later entered medical school there. She trained in psychiatry and psychoanalysis in London, took up the practice of psychoanalysis, and during World War II served as a Major in the Medical Corps of the British Army. In 1949 she returned to the United States with her husband, Dr. Louis Zetzel, an internist. They settled in Cambridge where Dr. Elizabeth Zetzel practiced psychoanalysis.
She became prominent as a teacher and officer in the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Dr. Zetzel contributed extensively to the literature of psychoanalysis and shortly before she died her book, “The Capacity for Emotional Growth,” was published.
A memorial service for Dr. Zetzel was held at Harvard shortly after her death. She is survived by her husband, who is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Harvard School of Medicine; a son, James; two daughters, Dr. Ellen Lambert and Mrs. Judy Nathanson; a brother, Robert Rosenberg, and a sister, Mrs. Maxwell Geismar.