information on clara thompson

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Do you have any information on Clara Thompson the psychologist and writer?

-- Christa Bonilla (hi4444@bolt.com), February 25, 2003

Answers

There is a brief biography of her posted at http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/thompson.html

Because she was such a good friend of Harry Stack Sullivan, there is a biographical chapter on Thompson in Helen Swick Perry's Psychiatrist of America: The Life of Harry Stack Sullivan (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 1982), which includes a nice photo of Thompson, and biographical material interspersed with rambling comments about Sullivan. Thompson was Sullivan's friend and his psychoanalyst. She contributed a chapter on Sullivan and Psychoanalysis to Patrick Mullahy's edited book on The Contributions of Harry Stack Sullivan (Hermitage House, 1952). I would read the Perry with a bit of a grain of salt--she implies that Thompson was in love with Sullivan and hurt about his failure to reciprocate-- Sullivan was struggling with his homosexuality, and Thompson was well aware of his situation.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), February 26, 2003.


The only solid, published info on Clara comes from Helen Perry's scholarship, either in the Psychiatrist of America bio or in Helen's entry in Dictionary of American Biography. Maurice Green (a student of Clara's) wrote a short bio piece in the Interpersonal Psychoanalysis compilation but it contains some factual errors. No "grain of salt" is necessary for Helen's work, she was a solid scholar. The Psychiatrist of America bio was nominated for a Pulitzer. It is a truly interpersonal biography. Helen does write "between the lines" at times. Sullivan's affairs with Clara or Karen Horney are examples of situations where Helen only hints at events rather than overtly describing them. It is sad that Clara rarely appears in psychological or psychiatric texts. Often when an author wants a token neo-Freudian, Karen H. gets the attention and Clara is ignored completely.

-- calvin saxton (saxtonc@easternct.edu), April 24, 2003.

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