Zetzel, Elizabeth Rosenberg, 1907-1970

Elizabeth Rosenberg Zetzel, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, was born in New York City, March 17, 1907, the daughter of James and Babette (Herman) Rosenberg. She was graduated from the Ethical Culture High School in 1924 and from Smith College with an A.B. in economics in 1928. She attended the London School of Economics as graduate student; while there, she became interested in medicine. She took her degree in medicine from London University in 1937, completed her training in psychoanalysis in 1938 and qualified as a psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in 1939. She was employed as an army psychiatrist in the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War II and after demobilization worked at the London Institute of Psychoanalysis and the Maudsley Hospital. She married Erich Guttman, neurologist and psychiatrist, in 1944 and, after his death in 1948, returned to the United States with their infant son, James. In June 1949 she married Dr. Louis Zetzel, a widower with two daughters. In Boston, her professional career combined research, teaching and psychiatric practice. She lectured at Harvard Medical School, 1950-1970, at Simmons College School of Social Work, 1953-1960, and was director of the Psychotherapy Study Center of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, 1963-1970. Having registered and been lisensed as a physician in Massachusetts in January 1950, Zetzel was appointed psychiatrist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, 1951-1970, and at McLean' Hospital, 1958-1965, and analyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, 1951-1970. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the International Psycho-Analytical Association (of which she was vice-president at the time of her death), and the American Psychoanalytic Association, and a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and of the Royal College of Physicians, London. She wrote many research papers, participated in numerous professional meetings, and was the author of two books: The Capacity for Emotional Growth, 1970, and, with William Meissner, Basic Concepts of Psychoanalytic Psychiatry, published posthumously in 1973, She died unexpectedly on November 22, 1970.