Psychosomatics 39:1-2, February 1998
© 1998 The Academy of Psychosomatic Medine
Childhood Memories of Sexual and Physical Abuse
Dr. Milton Rosenbaum's Perspective
Norman B. Levy, M.D.
Received April 8, 1997; accepted April 8, 1997. From the Department of Psychiatry, Coney Island Hospital, Brooklyn, New York. Address reprint requests to Dr. Levy, Department of Psychiatry, Hammett Pavillion Room 145, Coney Island Hospital, Brooklyn, NY 11235.
Key Words: Editorial • Childhood Memories • Rosenbaum • Child Abuse • Sexual Abuse • Physical Abuse • Repressed Memories • Editorial • Children and Adolescents
Dr. Milton Rosenbaum has a most unusual perspective in psychosomatic medicine. His career and expertise spans a little over 60 years as a physician and 50 years as a psychosomaticist. Boarded in both neurology and psychiatry, Dr. Rosenbaum received his neurology training at the Boston City Hospital and psychiatry training at McLean and Massachusetts General Hospitals. His Boston days put him in contact with such psychosomatic luminaries as Tracey Putman and Walter Cannon. There, Dr. Rosenbaum also gained an interest in psychoanalysis that he described at a recent psychosomatic meeting as "the only light" at the time. Psychoanalysis provided a theory that was logical and that offered promise of therapeutic response in the days of "darkness." These were times in which shock treatment given by the use of metrazole was replaced by the much more humane electric shock treatment. When Dr. Rosenbaum left Boston, he brought electric shock treatment, the electroencephelogram, and psychoanalysis to Cincinnati. There, he established a psychosomatic ward at the Cincinnati General Hospital and had regular interdisciplinary conferences. He was associated with such psychosomatic groundbreakers as Eugene Ferris, George Engel, John Romano, Morton Reiser, Alvin Shapiro, Authur Mirsky, and Marvin Stein. In 1955, Dr. Rosenbaum helped found the Department of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein Medical Center, where he served as chairman until 1969. He was the Professor of Psychiatry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem from 1954 to 1955 and again from 1969 to 1978 and then served as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Psychiatry at Marshall University. Among his many distinctions, Dr. Rosenbaum was president of the American Psychosomatic Society. Although Dr. Rosenbaum has authored more than 100 articles, he does not describe himself as a researcher but prefers to be thought of as a clinician and actively fuctions as such currently.
As a man who has an unusually wide perspective in the specialties of psychiatry and neurology and as a subspecialist, among others, and psychosomatics, he points out in his article that follows in this issue of Psychosomatics entitled "Childhood `Screen Memories': Are They Forgotten?" (pages 68–71) the significance of an analytic framework to the work that we do. He reminds us of the importance of childhood memories, especially those of sexual abuse and its importance in dealing with such clinical entities as disassociation, conversion, and somatoform disorders. He further reminds us that childhood memories are modified by not only the wishes and fears of the time of the event but also by events in later life, including the setting in which the memory is revealed, such as the suggestiveness, seductiveness, and other countertransferential matters having to do with the therapeutic or analytic situation. Dr. Rosenbaum's concepts concerning the significance of screen memories and the actuality of sexual and physical abuse are concepts worthy of serious consideration by therapists.
Readers of his perspective in this issue of the journal not only will find his article interesting but also very useful in their work as consultation-liaison psychiatrists.
This article has been cited by other articles:
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