Judith Rapoport obituary
The child psychiatrist Judith Rapoport, who has died aged 92, is credited with bringing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) to public awareness,Her book The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing (1989), which was translated into more than 20 languages and written in jargon-free style for a non-medical readership, was based on her groundbreaking research into the condition,People with OCD can feel their lives are upended by the feeling that they must constantly retie shoelaces, check light switches are turned off or doors are locked,Others describe the “torture” of having to perform rituals before leaving home or having to constantly wash their hands,Until the book was published, most people with OCD were unaware that others suffered similarly, and many were so embarrassed by their behaviour that they hid it from family and friends.
Rapoport showed there was a neurological basis for OCD and it was far more common than previously believed, perhaps affecting as much as 2% of the population,It had been thought that the disorder could be traced to an overly strict upbringings, such as where parents insist children clean their rooms, or overly strict potty training,However, Rapoport demonstrated that OCD was effectively a neurological disease that could run in families, and be treated with medication,Her double-blind drug trial in 1989 using the antidepressant clomipramine, led to the US Food and Drug Administration approving its use in cases of OCD,“I thought I was the only person touching things, lining them up, tens, maybe hundreds of times a day,” said Charles Gentz, who has OCD.
“It was mental torment,I thought I was crazy,And then I read Judy Rapoport’s book and the shame was washed away,” Gabrielle Shapiro, professor of clinical psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York, said: “By writing the book, she reduced the stigma for these people,”“These were tortured souls,” Rapoport said.
“If my work alleviated just part of their pain then it was not wasted time.”Born in New York City to Minna (nee Enteen), a theatre-loving schoolteacher, and Lewis Livant, a businessman, Judith had an older sister, Leda.Their maternal grandfather was the literary critic for The Jewish Daily Forward, Joel Enteen, a Russian émigré credited with translating Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts, among other texts, into Yiddish.Judith attended Walden school in Manhattan before going to Swarthmore College, a private liberal arts establishment in Pennsylvania, to study for a degree in experimental psychology.She graduated magna cum laude in 1955, subsequently reading for a postgraduate degree in medicine at Harvard Medical School, where she met her husband, Stanley Rapoport.
Being one of only five women in her year, she faced resentment from male students who thought she was taking a place better occupied by a man,She and Stanley graduated as medical doctors in 1959 and married two years later,She worked briefly at Mount Sinai hospital in New York, then began psychiatry training at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Harvard, followed by a spell at St Elizabeths hospital in Washington DC,In 1962 she and her husband won fellowships to study in Sweden at Uppsala University, and Judith then worked at the department of psychiatry at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, where she led research into women travelling from the US seeking abortions abroad,On return to the US, following stints at Georgetown University and the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, Rapoport joined the National Institute for Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1976.
This was where she produced her seminal work on OCD, and where she spent the rest of her working life, being promoted to head of the NIMH’s newly established child psychiatry branch in 1984.She became a leading figure in the shift of focus that American psychiatry underwent during her tenure, rejecting models of unconscious conflict dating back to Freud in favour of focusing on the brain’s biology and its role in mental illness.She retired in 2017, and was appointed emeritus.As well as her OCD research, she oversaw studies on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and childhood schizophrenia, where, once again, she helped change medical orthodoxy.In 1978 she published a paper that showed boys considered hyperactive and those in a control group reacted in the same way when given amphetamine, which stimulates the human nervous system.
Concentration levels in both groups improved, which ran counter to the prevailing belief that only hyperactive children were calmed by stimulants.In the case of childhood schizophrenia, she demonstrated through magnetic resonance imaging scans, that the condition was progressive, leading to a loss of brain matter.Previously it had been assumed that a child’s upbringing was the cause.Two subjects in the control group were her sons, Erik and Stuart, and in later years, Rapoport was criticised in some quarters for using them and other children in her drug trials.She appeared on numerous talk shows promoting her book and work, including being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey and Larry King.
Meanwhile her academic studies continued and, by retirement, she had published several medical books and more than 300 scientific papers.In 1991 she became a fellow of the US Institute of Medicine and, in 2000, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.“She was a pioneer,” Shapiro said, “turning child psychiatry into a modern, evidence-based discipline.”Outside her career Rapoport enjoyed music – playing the guitar and singing in choirs – the theatre, hiking and gardening.Her husband survives her, as do her sons and four grandsons.
Judith Livant Rapoport, child psychiatrist, born 12 July 1933; died 7 March 2026
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