We are engaged in a different sort of undertaking—a permanent experiment with risk taking, a prolonged and loving engagement with uncertainty on behalf of the mentally disabled.
Dr. Spiegel was born in Chicago, Illinois, and received an A.B. (1934) from Dartmouth College (1934) and an M.D. (1938) from Northwestern Medical School. He interned at the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago (1938–40), as a Fellow in Surgery at the Cincinnati General Hospital (1940–41), and the following year returned to the Michael Reese Hospital as a resident in psychiatry. He remained there as Chief of the Psychiatric Clinic until 1951.
Dr. Spiegel moved to the Boston area in the early 1950’s. He was a lecturer in social relations at Harvard University (1953–66), an associate clinical professor at Harvard Medical School (1957–66), Professor of Social Psychiatry at the Florence Heller Graduate School for Advanced Studies in Social Welfare at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Massachusetts (1966), and later Emeritus Professor (1980).
Dr. Spiegel was active in medical organizations, serving as a member of the American Sociological Association, the American Psychosomatic Society, the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry, the Society of Applied Anthropology, and the Academy of Psychoanalysis.
During his APA presidential year, Dr. Spiegel initiated and supported a national conference on the Chronic Mental Patient, chaired by John A. Talbott, M.D.
Dr. Spiegel served as President of the American Psychiatric Association (1974–75).