The
National Center for Clinical Infant Programs
mourns the loss on March 20, 1988 of Reginald
S. Lourie, a founding member and first chairman
of NCCIP. Reginald Lourie was a pediatrician,
child psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst whose
unique ability to mobilize a consensus of
compassion created new opportunities for
thousands of children and families in this
country.
Reginald
Lourie came to Washington, D.C. in 1948
to join the staff at Children's Hospital
and became its director of psychiatry.
He also served as medical director of
Hillcrest Children's Center and the Regional
Center for Infants and Young Children.
As
a faculty member at the medical schools
of George Washington, Howard, and Georgetown
universities, he helped train hundreds
of child psychiatrists. He also was influential
in teaching young pediatricians to consider
mental and emotional factors in their
treatment of children.
Reg
Lourie was concerned throughout his career
with the prevention of mental and emotional
disabilities. Understanding that sick
children need to be with their parents
as much as possible, he played a key role
in liberalizing visiting hours for parents
of hospitalized children. When he joined
the staff of Children's Hospital, parents
were allowed to visit their children only
one or two hours a week, on the theory
that their presence would be disruptive
to doctors and nurses. Lourie had that
changed to the present standard, which
allows parents almost unlimited visiting
privileges.
Reginald
Lourie had an impact on national policy
and programs for children. He served as
chairman of President John F. Kennedy's
Task Force on the Mental Health of Children
and was on the national founding and planning
committee for Head Start. Even as the
Head Start program was being developed
in 1964 for 4 and 5 year olds, Lourie
and others pointed out that many children
needed help in the earliest years of life.
Several years later, Head Start's Parent/Child
Centers were created to support the development
of infants and their families.
Reg
Lourie's attention to the importance of
the first three years of life and the
opportunities to enhance the healthy growth
of very young children and their families
through preventive approaches during this
period has had a major impact on clinical
practice and on public policy initiatives.
Professionals from a wide range of disciplines
are now involved in the field of infant
mental health. Pioneering organizations
and initiatives such as the National Center
for Clinical Infant Programs, the Regional
Center for Infants and Young Children,
and the Center for Successful Child Development
(the "Beethoven Project") reflect
Dr. Lourie's vision. Legislation such
as the Education for the Handicapped Act
Amendments of 1986, the Parental and Medical
Leave Act, and the Act for Better Child
Care are in keeping with Reginald Lourie's
talent for synthesizing complex developmental
findings from several fields of scientific
inquiry and interpreting these discoveries
in a way that helps professionals and
policymakers unite to improve the current
and future lives of vulnerable young children.
Reg
Lourie received numerous honors for his
many contributions. In December, 1987
he was presented with the Dolley Madison
Award of the National Center for Clinical
Infant Programs. The text of that award
described Lourie as "a colleague,
teacher and friend (who) possessed the
uncanny ability to see through posturing,
indifference and even anger to the core
human need for dependency and caring;
who always sees in each person the adaptive
struggle for closeness and intimacy and
whose legendary anecdotes and stories
sculpt truths into view, transforming
unsmiling doubters into grinning believers."
Those
of us in the National Center for Clinical
Infant Programs and all across the country
who have had the privilege of knowing,
learning from, and leaning on Reg Lourie
will continue to be inspired by his deep
wisdom, his broad compassion, his boundless
optimism, and his fierce commitment to
all the children of this country.
Reproduced
from: 22 April 1988 Zero to Three
