In the history of medicine, Helen Singer Kaplan is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Helen Singer Kaplan as Austrian-American psychiatrist and sex therapist.
Helen Singer Kaplan was born at Vienna in 1929. Her recorded nationality is Austria. She trained at Syracuse University and Columbia University.
Antibiotics, imaging and the randomised trial defined twentieth-century medicine; evidence replaced authority as the standard.
Her posts were held at Weill Cornell Medicine and Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic.
Her principal contribution is The new sex therapy; active treatment of sexual dysfunctions. The test of medical work is whether practice changed, not whether the argument was elegant.
That the work was done from Austria matters: hospitals, training and research funding are unevenly distributed, and they decide which questions can be asked.
Helen Singer Kaplan died in 1995, aged 66. What survives is the change in practice, which is how a medical life is actually measured.
Achievements
- Notable work: The new sex therapy; active treatment of sexual dysfunctions
- Held posts at Weill Cornell Medicine and Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic
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