The Arthur R. Kravitz Award Recipients of 2015 and 2017, Deborah Choate, MD and Karen Melikian, PhD talk about their community work in a video interview recorded on Aug 20, 2021 in the BPSI Library.
Deborah Choate, MD, received the Kravitz Award in 2015. For many years she was a psychiatric/psychoanalytic consultant with the homeless and disadvantaged community, volunteering at organizations that helped women who are homeless or living in poverty to obtain housing, education, and economic independence. She is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts, also involved with RSMP Boston – Reflective Spaces, Material Places – a group founded by Lynne Layton based on a similar group in the Bay area that seeks to bring psychoanalytic ideas into community mental health, and work with the impact of sociopolitical issues on mental health. The award also recognized her outstanding leadership as Chair of the Social Awareness Committee at BPSI.
Karen Melikian, PhD, received the Kravitz Award in 2017.Shehas been dedicated to the application of psychoanalysis in the wider community for many years. She worked with Physicians for Human Rights, interviewing refugees seeking asylum in the Boston area, worked at the deportation center for women and children in Dilly, Texas, at the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, and provided clinical treatment to children in long term care through the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. Since her graduation from the psychoanalytic training at BPSI, she also consulted her colleagues, psychoanalysts, in Armenia and participated in many Armenian conferences on trauma and genocide. She is currently a supervisor for The McLean/Franciscan children’s services programs.
The Arthur R. Kravitz Award for Community Action and Humanitarian Contributions was established in 2008 to recognize Members of BPSI who have provided noteworthy psychoanalytically-informed service to our broader community. Click here to watch other interviews in this series.
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