Danto, Elizabeth Ann 1952–

PERSONAL: Born May 31, 1952, in Detroit, MI; married Paul Werner. Education: Sarah Lawrence College, B.A., 1973; Columbia University, M.S., 1984; New York University, Ph.D., 1996.

ADDRESSES: Office—Hunter College School of Social Work, City University of New York, 129 E. 79th St., New York, NY 10021. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Professor and occupational social worker. United Storeworkers Union, New York, NY, coordinator of social services, 1983–86; Office of Mayor, New York, NY, employee assistance program director, 1986–91; Stillpoint, New York, NY, founding director, 1996; City University of New York, Hunter College School of Social Work, New York, NY, associate professor, 1997–.

MEMBER: National Association of Social Workers (commissioner, 1989–92); Council on Social Work Education.

AWARDS, HONORS: American Psychoanalytic Association fellow, 1998–99; Rockefeller Archive Center Research Award, 1999; President's Teaching and Research Incentive Award, 1999; Eugene Lang Junior Faculty Development Award, 2000; faculty research grant from the DAAD/German Academic Exchange Service, 2002; "Salute to Scholars," CUNY-wide honor for outstanding scholarship, 2002; TIAA-CREF Outstanding Faculty Lecturer Award, 2004; PSCCUNY Research Foundation Grant, 2005.

WRITINGS:

Freud's Free Clinics: Psychoanalysis and Social Justice, 1918–1938, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2005

Contributor to books, including Cultural Competency in Managed Behavioral Healthcare, edited by V. Jackson and L. Lopez, Manisses Communications Group (Providence, RI), 1999; Sourcebook of Rehabilitation and Mental Health Practice, edited by D. Moxley and J. Finch, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press (New York, NY), 2004; and The Transnational Unconscious, edited by M. Plotkin and J. Damousi, Macmillan (New York, NY), in press.

Contributor to periodicals such as American Psychoanalyst, Psychoanalytic Social Work, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Journal of Psychoanalysis, Journal of the Social History of Medicine, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, and Employee Assistance Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS: Elizabeth Ann Danto began her career as a social worker in the 1980s, with a focus on providing social services in the workplace. As a professor of social work at Hunter College in New York City and a frequent contributor to scholarly journals and books, her research topics have ranged from occupational social work to the history of psychoanalysis. She traveled to Berlin, Germany, in 2002 to conduct archival research on a free mental health clinic known as the "Berlin Poliklinik," which was overseen and supported by Sigmund Freud. Danto's first book, titled Freud's Free Clinics: Psychoanalysis and Social Justice, 1918–1938, represents the culmination of her Berlin sabbatical and sets out to prove that Freud's psychoanalytic methods were not reserved for the upper class. Instead, Danto asserts that Freud and his colleagues were social activists who were committed to treating those who could not otherwise afford this novel approach to psychotherapy.

E. lames Lieberman, writing in Library Journal, commented, "Danto's stories can be gripping…. Historians and readers with a grasp of psychoanalysis will discover a gold mine." Village Voice contributor Nathan Deuel remarked, "The author's meticulous research and awesome grasp of the movement's early days in Vienna and Berlin do more than simply prosecute an argument; they also give a surprisingly nimble account of National Socialism's stranglehold on Germany and Austria between the wars."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, April 1, 2005, E. lames Lieberman, review of Freud's Free Clinics: Psychoanalysis and Social Justice, 1918–1938, p. 113.

ONLINE

Hunter College School of Social Work Web site, http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/ (March 18, 2006), author profile.

Village Voice Online, http://www.villagevoice.com/ (March 18, 2006), Nathan Deuel, "Shrink Raps: Goodnight, Vienna: Three Books Refract Sigmund Freud."