Hedda Bolgar
Born(1909-08-19)August 19, 1909
Switzerland
DiedMay 13, 2013(2013-05-13) (aged 103)
Alma materUniversity of Vienna (PhD, 1934)
Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute
OccupationPsychoanalyst
Employer(s)Mt. Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies, The Wright Institute of Los Angeles, (1970-), Hedda Bolgar Psychotherapy Clinic, (1974-)
SpouseHerbert Bekker
Parent(s)Elek Bolgar, Elza Stern

Hedda Bolgar (August 19, 1909 – May 13, 2013) was a psychoanalyst in Los Angeles, California, who maintained an active practice when she was over 100 years old.[1] She saw patients four days a week at age 102.[2]

Early life

Bolgar was born in Zurich, Switzerland, on August 19, 1909. At age 14, Bolgar became a vegetarian.[2][3] She was the only child of Elek Bolgar, a Hungarian historian and diplomat, and Elza Stern, a reporter who was one of the few women to cover World War I.[4] Elek and Elza Bolgar were communists; they cancelled her ninth birthday so they could take part in a civil uprising in Hungary.[4]

Career in Vienna

Bolgar studied at the University of Vienna.[4] She studied under Charlotte Bühler and earned her doctorate in 1934.[5] She knew Anna Freud and attended Sigmund Freud's lectures.[6]

In the mid-1930s, Bolgar developed the "Little World Test" (also known as the "Bolgar—Fischer World Test") with her close friend Liselotte Fischer.[7] It was a nonverbal, cross-cultural test similar to the Rorshach Ink Blot Test or the Thematic Apperception Test.[7] When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Bolgar fled Vienna.[4]

Career in the United States

After arriving in the US, Bolgar trained at the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute and taught at the University of Chicago.[4] While in the Midwest, Bolgar gave training on the "Little World Test."[7] Bolgar was chief of psychology at Mt. Sinai Hospital (now Cedars-Sinai Medical Center). She helped found the California School of Professional Psychology, the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies and the Wright Institute Los Angeles, a postgraduate training center and clinic.[4]

When Bolgar was 95, she helped organize a three-day conference called "The Uprooted Mind: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Living in an Unsafe World."[4] In 2012, at the age of 102, Bolgar was still seeing patients four days a week.[2] At 102, she gave a lecture on "Dogma and Flexibility in Psychoanalytic Technique" before the New Center for Psychoanalysis, a Los Angeles group that offers advanced education to therapists.[4]

Personal life

Bolgar's husband, economist Herbert Bekker, joined her in the U.S. in 1940 and the two moved to Los Angeles in 1956.[4] The couple had no children.[4] Bekker died in 1973.[4]

Bolgar died on May 13, 2013, at the age of 103.[8] When she died, she was likely the oldest active member of the American Psychological Association (APA) and probably the oldest practicing psychoanalyst in the United States.[8]

Quotes

  • "I've lived through revolutions, famine, war. Things like that."
  • "There was a war, and I had vanilla ice cream for lunch."
  • "I started a lot of things at 65."[9]
  • "The day the Nazis came to Vienna, I left. I had been very active in anti-Nazi politics and it really wasn't safe for me to stay. They came in on a Sunday and I decided Sunday was a good time to leave because on Monday they'd start working. They'd probably find the person who wrote those terrible articles about them pretty quickly."[10]
  • "Women must be agents of their own lives. They must not be dependent on someone else to provide for them."[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Hedda Bolgar". Psychology's Feminist Voices. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 "At age 102, this therapist is still psyched". TODAY.com. November 14, 2011. Archived from the original on November 30, 2016. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  3. ↑ "At 99, she’s living life for others". latimes.com. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Chawkins, Steve (May 18, 2013). "Hedda Bolgar dies at 103; renowned psychoanalyst". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  5. ↑ Ash, Mitchell G.; Söllner, Alfons (June 6, 2002). Forced Migration and Scientific Change: Emigré German-Speaking Scientists and Scholars After 1933. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521522786.
  6. ↑ Publisher, Michael Sigman Writer/Editor; Music (May 15, 2013). "Hedda Bolgar, Pioneering Psychoanalyst, Dies at 103". The Huffington Post. Retrieved November 30, 2016. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. 1 2 3 Friedman, Harriet S.; Mitchell, Rie Rogers (January 4, 2002). Sandplay: Past, Present and Future. Routledge. ISBN 9781134853830.
  8. 1 2 "PsycNET - Option to Buy". psycnet.apa.org. Retrieved November 30, 2016.
  9. ↑ Lopez, Steve (September 14, 2008). "At 99, She's Living Life for Others". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  10. ↑ Peri, Camille (undated). "A 99-Year-Old Psychoanalyst Talks About Why the Last Three Decades Have Been Some of the Best Years of Her Life". Caring.com. Archived from the original on June 16, 2013. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
  11. ↑ "America's Outstanding Oldest Workers – 2011: Hedda Bolgar". Experience Works. Retrieved May 19, 2013.
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