Jean Baker Miller, 78; psychiatrist challenged how society viewed women (obituary from last Aug.)
ED - I just found out the Jean Baker Miller died! Her work was very influential in terms of my own thinking around women, especially with regards to concepts of mental health.
By Gloria Negri, Globe Staff | August 5, 2006
Well before the feminist movement took hold in the 1970s, Jean Baker Miller, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, was pondering the role of women in modern society, questioning why so many of her patients were developing aches and pains for which medicine had no answer. “As they talked about how much of their lives was spent on meeting the needs of others," she told the Globe in 1981, “the women I met as friends when our children were young expressed the same doubts about their own self-worth as the patients. In general, women seemed to feel there must be something wrong with us." Dr. Miller, a practicing psychiatrist for almost 50 years, set out to prove there was nothing wrong with women, but rather with the way modern culture viewed them. Her groundbreaking 1976 book, “Toward a New Psychology of Women," was a best-seller in the fields of psychology and women’s studies. In it, Dr. Miller, a social activist as well as a feminist, examines dominant and subordinate roles in relationships between men and women and draws a similar comparison in societal and global interactions. Dr. Miller, founding director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College, died last Saturday at her Brookline home after suffering from post-polio syndrome and a 13-year struggle with emphysema. She was 78. “Jean was always concerned about injustice and inequalities among people," said her husband, M.S. “Mike" Miller, former chairman of the sociology department at Boston University. “She felt that if people built connections among themselves, there would be concern for one another and that if they tried to do things together, to build rather than isolate, that this would lead to a larger social change." Judith Jordan, who became director of the institute when Dr. Miller stepped down six months ago, said yesterday that the main contribution of Dr. Miller’s book “was to take what were then seen as weaknesses of women and show us the ways in which they were actually strengths and essential to the well-being of all people." “I would say that although Jean worked primarily in the field of psychiatry, her real passion was for shifting the world in the direction of more social justice and social change," she said. Dr. Miller had all the qualities to effect change, Jordan said. “She had a great sense of perspective, which was often revealed in her deep sense of humor. She really lived her message, She was truly humble and had incredible courage about her vision." Since Dr. Miller’s death, Jordan said, the institute has received calls and e-mails from all over the world. “Most women say she made them felt heard. They felt seen. They felt validated." Dr. Miller had sandy hair and pale skin and eyes. Her slight stature belied her steely resolve to change society’s view of women as dependent and subordinate. As former director of the Stone Center for Developmental Services at Wellesley College, she said in a 1984 Globe story that what was considered a female trait of caring about relationships was “the human characteristic most needed at this time . . . in this day of nuclear threat, even connected to the survival of us all." Amy Banks, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist at the institute, recalled staff meetings held at Dr. Miller’s house with a kettle boiling for tea. “We talked about how we were going to change the world, and those conversations continued [until] shortly before Jean died. Her eyes still lit up with every new idea." Born in the Bronx to Henry and Irene (Mustard) Baker, she was named Jean Teutonia Baker. She contracted polio when she was 10 months old and underwent several operations before the age of 10 that left her with an atrophied leg and a limp. The polio made her “quiet and sensitive to other people," her husband said, but it didn’t stop her. “I think it was one of the elements that shaped her ideology," he said, “that made her concerned about the elements of equality and decency for others." Dr. Miller was one of three children in a poor family, and the girls in her neighborhood didn’t go to college, Miller said. But “Jean felt she had to support herself — that was part of it — but also that she was very smart and felt she wanted to achieve something," he said. She won a full scholarship to Sarah Lawrence College, where she changed her major from history to premed and graduated in 1948. She then won a full scholarship to the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, where she was one of 10 women in a class of 100. She graduated in 1952. After her first-year internship in internal medicine at Montefiore Hospital in New York City, she decided to switch to psychiatry and did her residency at Bellevue Medical Center, Jacobi Medical Center, both in New York City, and Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. The Millers, who met at a political meeting in New York City, were married in 1955. Between 1956 and 1972, Dr. Miller had private practices in psychiatry and psychoanalysis at different times in Manhattan or Syracuse. While juggling a full academic and clinical schedule, she was also a full-time mother to their two sons. “Socially, mother was delightful and a great storyteller," her son, Edward D. of New York City, said. In 1972-1973, the Millers lived in London, where Dr. Miller was working at Tavistock Institute, a psychological and social sciences center. They moved to Boston in 1973 when her husband was appointed at BU, but returned to London in 1976 for a year while Dr. Miller worked at the Charing Cross Hospital studying the impact of stillbirth on families. After coming back to Boston, Dr. Miller carried on her private practice and taught at Boston University School of Medicine and at Harvard Medical School before beginning at The Stone Center in 1981. The Jean Baker Miller Training Institute was founded in 1995. In her last published article at Wellesley this spring, Dr. Miller discussed the dilemma of women having to choose between work and full-time motherhood. “Women have made tremendous strides in advancing our options," she wrote. “We don’t want to get bogged down now. . . . Society needs to help women, men, and families find new multiple-choice alternatives today." In addition to her husband and son, Dr. Miller leaves another son, Jonathan F. of Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., and a grandson. A memorial service will be held at Wellesley College in the fall.
