Jean Baker Miller

Jean Baker Miller, M.D.m Noted Feminist, Psychoanalyst, Social Activist; 1927-2006

"Founding Director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) and a clinical professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine. Served as the first director of the Stone Center for Developmental Services and Studies, now a part of WCW, from 1981 to 1984.

"A practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst for over 40 years, Dr. Miller was the author of Toward a New Psychology of Women (Boston, Beacon Press, 1976), a book which has become a classic in its field and about which a Boston Globe review said: "This small book may do more to suggest the range and scope of female possibilities than anything since Women's Suffrage." The book has been translated into 20 languages and was reissued in a second edition in 1987. A newer book, The Healing Connection (Boston, Beacon Press, 1997) co-authored with Irene Stiver, Ph.D., continues and expands this work. Dr. Miller was also co-author of Women's Growth in Connection (Guildford Press, 1991) and editor of Psychoanalysis and Women (New York, Brunner-Mazel and Penguin Books, 1973) and of numerous papers in professional journals on the psychology of women, depression and studies of dreams. She has been a consultant, leader, and member of several women's groups.

"Dr. Miller received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in 1948, her M.D. from Columbia University in 1952 and her certification in psychoanalysis from New York Medical College in 1959. She also hold honorary degrees of Doctor of Human Letters from Brandeis University (1987) and Doctor Honoris Causa from Regis College (1995). She received her psychiatry training at Bellevue Hospital and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, both in New York City and at the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse.

"Dr. Miller was a member of numerous professional societies, including the American College Psychiatrists, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Orthopsychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychoanalysis.

"Since 1981, Dr. Miller had been Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine. She was also on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and Associate Psychiatrist at Beth Israel Hospital. Prior to these positions, she was a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City and at the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. In 1972-73, Dr. Miller was a visiting lecturer at the London School of Economics, and at the Tavistock Institute and Clinic in London."

"The relational-cultural theory was developed for women suffering from depression or identity disorders and was inspired in part by Betty Friedan’s “Feminine Mystique” and other works of the rising feminist movement of the 1960’s." [1]