Alfred Freedman, NYAM Fellow and Internationally Renowned Psychiatrist, is Fondly Remembered

Alfred M. Freedman, MD (Credit: New York Medical College)

NYAM lost a colleague and true friend with the passing of Alfred Freedman, MD, a Fellow for 55 years and an accomplished leader in the field of psychiatry.

Dr. Freedman, who died at his home in Manhattan on Sunday, April 17, 2011, had a lasting impact on the gay rights movement and was an outspoken opponent of the death penalty. He was 94 years old.

In 1973, as President of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Freedman played a key role in ending the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness. At the time, homosexuality was listed as a “sexual deviation” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders II. With his endorsement, the APA passed a resolution to remove homosexuality from the list of psychiatric disorders.

In a New York Times interview, Sue Hyde, who organizes the annual conference of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, viewed Dr. Freedman’s work as a major turning point in the gay rights movement.

“It was a huge victory for a movement that in 1973 was young, small, very underfunded and had not yet had this kind of political validation,” Ms. Hyde said. “It is the single most important event in the history of what would become the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement.”

A graduate of Cornell University and the University of Minnesota, Dr. Freedman joined the New York Medical College faculty in 1960 and became the first full-time chairman of the psychiatry department. Concerned with the high levels of alcoholism, drug abuse and crime in the school’s impoverished East Harlem neighborhood, he established drug treatment programs and for adults and adolescents in the community and created a social and community psychiatry division at the school to serve neighborhood residents.

During his 1973 term as President of the APA, Dr. Freedman also spoke out against the Soviet Union’s use of psychiatric abuse of prisoners of war. After his retirement from New York Medical College, he became a vocal opponent of the death penalty. With fellow psychiatrist Abraham Halpern, he encouraged the American Medical Association to enforce a provision in its code of ethics prohibiting doctors from participating in executions.

He became a NYAM Fellow in 1957 and was a member of the Geriatrics, History of Medicine and Public Health, and Psychiatry Sections. During his time as a Fellow, Dr. Freedman was an ardent admirer of the NYAM Library, often utilizing it as a resource for his work and his love of medical history, according to his son, Paul Freedman, Chair of the History Department at Yale University.

“My father had a great fascination for the history of medicine in general and psychiatry in particular. He was a great admirer of the work of the Academy both as a repository of memory (history) and as an organization with a contemporary mission,” Professor Freedman said.

“In recent years, my own interest as an historian led me to use the Rare Book Room at the Academy and my father went with me a couple times. In the months before he died, my father wanted to have us visit the Rare Book Room again together, but always some health or logistical problem intervened. I wish we had been there together just once in 2011,” Professor Freedman continued.

Lorraine A. LaHuta, Vice President of Development and Communications at NYAM, fondly remembered Dr. Freedman’s enthusiasm for NYAM and his participation in many of the institution’s activities.

“I had the delightful pleasure of getting to know Dr. Freedman in just the past few years. I will remember him most fondly for his unfailing energy championing causes he cared deeply about and his utter devotion to and admiration for his family,” Ms. LaHuta said.

Dr. Freedman also served as President of the American Psychopathological Association and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and was founding editor of the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry. He received the first Terence Cardinal Cooke Award from New York Medical College and the APA's Human Rights Award.

In addition to his son Paul, Dr. Freedman is survived by his wife, Marcia; another son, Dan; and three grandchildren.

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Posted on May 2, 2011

Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
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