Oral Histories

Interview of Milton Greenblatt

UCLA professor of psychiatry and bio-behavioral sciences. Director of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute.
Subtitle:
Complete Psychiatrist
Series:
UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital
Topic:
UCLA and University of California History
Science, Medicine, and Technology
UCLA Research Centers and Programs
Biographical Note:
UCLA professor of psychiatry and bio-behavioral sciences. Director of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute.
Interviewer:
Novak, Steven J.
Interviewee:
Greenblatt, Milton
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
Length:
14 hrs.
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Series Statement:
This series was made possible by support from the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital and documents the history of that institution.
Abstract:
Childhood in Boston; attends Tufts College; reasons for going into medicine; attends Tufts University School of Medicine; anti-Semitism and assimilation; conducting neuropsychiatric examinations at an induction center during World War II; decision to specialize in psychiatry; internship at Beth Israel Hospital; Harry C. Solomon; studies and teaches neuropathology; Norman Cousins's psychoimmunology research at UCLA; electroconvulsive therapy; insulin coma treatment; lobotomy research; LSD research; Robert W. Hyde; Max Rinkel; Timothy Leary; Richard Alpert (Babba Ram Dass); serves as director of laboratories and research at Massachusetts Mental Health Center; how to foster research and manage researchers; comparing the medical communities of Harvard University and UCLA; the role of pharmaceutical companies in promoting research; establishing community mental health centers; the Boston State Hospital halfway house; From Custodial to Therapeutic Patient Care in Mental Hospitals; mental health reforms of the sixties; poverty and mental illness; Hispanics Seek Health Care: A Study of 1,088 Veterans of Three War Eras; studying homelessness; resigns as Massachusetts commissioner of mental health; Louis Jolyon West; moves to California; joins UCLA's Neuro-psychiatric Institute (NPI); becomes chief of psychiatry at Sepulveda Veterans Administration Medical Center; upgrading Sepulveda psychiatry; conflict between psychiatrists and psychologists; becomes chief of professional services at Brentwood Veterans Administration Medical Center; appointed director of the NPI Hospital and Clinics; Sherman M. Mellinkoff; Kenneth I. Shine; prominent NPI faculty; Edwin S. Shneidman; impact of the California state budget deficit; preventive psychiatry; becomes chief of psychiatry at Los Angeles County-Olive View Medical Center; upgrading Olive View psychiatry; impact of rising costs on health care; the stigma attached to psychiatry; the future of psychiatry.