RAPAPORT, DAVID

RAPAPORT, DAVID (1911–1960), U.S. clinical psychologist. Born in Hungary, he interrupted his studies in 1933 and for two years lived in a kibbutz in Palestine. He moved to the U.S. and from 1940 to 1948 was a leading figure at the Menninger Foundation, Topeka, Kansas, first as chief clinical psychologist and then as director of research. From 1948 he worked at the Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He wrote Emotions and Memory (1950) which reflects his continuous attempts at demonstrating the close interaction between the affective and cognitive spheres in mental functioning; Diagnostic Psychological Testing (with M.M. Gill and R. Schafer, 2 vols. 1948–49; rev. ed. 1968) presenting his pioneering work in clinical psychology and reflecting the revolutionary transition of psychologists from psychometricians to clinicians; and Organization and Pathology of Thought (1951), a monumental annotated source book, in which his copious critical footnotes to excellent translations into English of important contributions to psychology and psychiatry from Europe attempted to create a conceptual framework linking ideas and findings of different thinkers. A visit to Israel in 1953 resulted in his paper "Study of Kibbutz Education and Its Bearing on the Theory of Development" (1957). His works extend from clinical research on the etiology of the psychosis of dementia paralytica to the analysis of different psychodiagnostic instruments. His attempt at systematization of psychoanalytic theory appeared as The Structure of Psychoanalytic Theory: A Systematizing Attempt (1960). He was also concerned with the professional status of the clinical psychologist and his training. With David Shakow he wrote The Influence of Freud on American Psychology (1964). His collected papers, edited by M.M. Gill, were published in 1967. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: R.P. Knight, in: Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 30 (1961), 262–4; M.M. Gill, in: Rapaport, Collected Papers (1967), 3–7; M.M. Gill and G.S. Klein, ibid., 8–31, incl. bibl. (Avraham A. Weiss)