October 6, 2000

The MGH hosted a special dinner to mark the founding of the Endowment for the Advancement of Psychotherapy Sept. 27 at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge.

According to Anne Alonso, PhD, of MGH Psychiatry, the endowment will support and expand the education of dynamic psychotherapy, or the "talking therapies," at a time when the availability of such training is at risk because of the limitations health insurance places on such therapies. The MGH plans to raise a $1 million endowment to help support the training of mental health providers for this form of therapy.

The founding dinner of the endowment honored Mrs. Albert (Tipper) Gore, wife of Vice President Al Gore, and Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD, professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, for their involvement in issues related to mental health awareness and education.

"With psychotherapy feeling squeezed by cost constraints, this endowment at the MGH will help bolster and enrich the education of clinicians and the general public in the importance of the talk therapies," says Alonso.

For more information about the endowment, call 726-6797.

From left, Anne Alonso, PhD; Kay Redfield Jamison, PhD;
and dinner co-chairs Teresa Spillane, PsyD; and Priscilla Kauff, PhD.