The Bernard L. Pacella, MD Parent Child Center

About Us: Bernard L. Pacella, MD

All of us at the Pacella Parent Child Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and Society are grateful to the generosity of an anonymous donor in honor of Bernard Pacella. In May 2002, Dr. Pacella was honored and the Center was officially named at the home of Drs. Arlene and Arnold Richards. We are very grateful to Dr. Arnold Richards for his role in the development of the gift.

It is extremely appropriate that a major center geared to helping children and their parents is named after Bernard Pacella. This is so because helping children has been the most significant part of Dr. Pacella's career as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

Dr. Pacella was first certified in neurophysiology and neurology. In the early 1940s he was at Columbia with Nolan Lewis. Because he had a background in Pediatrics he was asked to develop a child psychiatry division at Columbia . During this time he studied the EEGs of children (which had just been developed). This work with children resulting in the creation of the first book on child psychiatry, co-edited with Nolan D. C. Lewis, MD in 1945, "Modern Trends in Child Psychiatry."

In a Review in the Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Edith B. Jackson wrote, "In a preface, Dr. Lewis and Dr. Pacella state that the book is from a series of lectures on Child Psychiatry and Child Guidance given at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Hospital during the years 1943 and 1944, and that it is their purpose to make accessible the most recent thought, investigations and achievements in child psychiatry. The papers of Hilde Bruch, Bernard L. Pacella, Lauretta Bender, and J. Louise Despert are noteworthy for their clarity and skill in presentation.

Dr. Pacella then came in contact with psychoanalysts and psychoanalysis. He trained with Ernst Kris, Edith Jacobson, and Otto Isakower and collaborated with Phyllis Greenacre and particularly with Margaret S. Mahler. They were close friends for many years. He is a past President of the Margaret S. Mahler Psychiatric Research Foundation and a past President and Treasurer of The American Psychoanalytic Association.

As an example of the kind of critical thinking he has evinced, I would like to give you some quotes from Ted Jacobs who reviewed a 1992 book, "When The Body Speaks. Psychological Meaning In Kinetic Clues," Edited by Selma Kramer and Salman Akhtar. This book contained the papers and the discussions of them read at the 22nd Annual Margaret S. Mahler Symposium on Child Development held in Philadelphia in 1991. Dr. Jacobs writes,

"Bernard Pacella's overview of the papers serves a synthesizing function. A colleague of Mahler's and himself an expert in early childhood development, Pacella presents a thoughtful and balanced discussion of Mahler's views and their relationship to clinical work with adults. Like McLaughlin and Pulver, he raises significant questions about the nature of that relationship. To clarify these issues poses an important challenge to future researchers. While raising these questions, Pacella also affirms his conviction of the fundamental importance of Mahler's research and its relevance to later life."

Jacobs also states that "Questions of particular interest to these authors are whether manifestations of the separation-individuation stage of development and its rapprochement subphase can be identified in adult patients, how and in what way this centrally important developmental phase influences the thinking and behavior of such individuals, and whether interventions aimed at reconstructing and interpreting conflicts related to separation-individuation issues are clinically useful. In his discussion of the papers, Bernard Pacella formulates this challenge in a succinct way:

"A most difficult task confronting the contemporary psychoanalyst is the valid application and integration of the data from early child development research, especially observations of Mahler and colleagues, into psychoanalytic theory and practice" (p. 180).

We at the Pacella Parent Child Center are honored to be able to continue Dr. Pacella's important work with children and their families. We thus pledge that we will continue his commitment to child analysis, child psychiatry, and early childhood development. The generous contribution in his honor will have a profound impact on promoting the influence of psychoanalytic ideas to the care of children, their parents, and caretakers. We plan to extend this work to socially disadvantaged families and promote psychoanalytic research.

Remembering Dr. Pacella

The Pacella Parent Child Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute mourns the loss of Bernard L. Pacella, MD, in whose honor the Center is named through the generosity of an anonymous benefactor.

Helping children has been the most significant part of Dr. Pacella's career as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Dr. Pacella was first certified in neurophysiology and neurology. His early work with children resulted in the creation of the first book on child psychiatry, co-edited with Nolan D. C. Lewis, MD in 1945, "Modern Trends in Child Psychiatry." Dr. Pacella trained in psychoanalysis with Ernst Kris, Edith Jacobson, and Otto Isakower. He collaborated with Phyllis Greenacre and was a close colleague of Margaret Mahler. In addition to being a long time member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, where he was a former Treasurer, he held many positions and received many honors including being a past President of the Margaret S. Mahler Psychiatric Research Foundation and a past President and Treasurer of The American Psychoanalytic Association.

Dr. Pacella presented thoughtful and balanced discussions of theoretical views and their relationship to clinical work with children and adults. He was particularly interested in Dr. Mahler’s ideas of early child development and its relevance to later life. He studied the applicability of the separation-individuation process on development in children and adults. Many of these ideas continue to be applied at the Pacella Parent Child Center.

Dr. Pacella was deeply committed to ethical and moral principles and issues of social justice. He wrote about the importance of value systems for adolescents, about the value of pastoral counseling, and about the importance of paternal influence for the child from the earliest years. During his tenure as President of the American Psychoanalytic Association a committee was created which addressed bias and discrimination with regards to homosexuality and which facilitated changes in attitude and policy in the organization.

We extend our deepest condolences to his sister, his children, and his grandchildren.

Leon Hoffman, MD, Director
Alice Rosenman, MS, CSW, Program Coordinator