Norman A. Levy *28

Norman died at home in Los Angeles Dec. 21, 2005, after a brief illness. He was 98.

Norman was a pioneer in the development of a more humanistic, transactional psychoanalysis in America. He was a charter member of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in 1947, but because of his more liberal beliefs about therapeutic interaction, he broke from that institute. In 1950 he and a few like-minded colleagues co-founded the more progressive Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute. He spent the rest of his career as a prominent clinician, training analyst, and teacher who practiced psychiatry and supervised students for almost 70 years, up until his death.

Norman served as a member of California Gov. Earl Warren’s Advisory Committee for Mental Health. He was an emeritus clinical professor at USC School of Medicine, and an emeritus training analyst at the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute.

Norman was born and raised in Newark, N.J. After graduation from Princeton, he earned a medical degree at Johns Hopkins. He completed training in neurology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, and then returned to Johns Hopkins’ Phipps Clinic for psychiatric training. In 1937 he moved to the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago for psychoanalytic training. After serving in the Air Force during World War II, he spent the rest of his life in Southern California.

He is survived by his wife, Jeanne; daughters Katherine Hall and Mary Lands; son Jim; stepdaughters Sydney Bianchi and Leslie Jordan; a sister, Rhoda Loeser; a brother, Carl Leeds; 12 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.