Robert Shaw Obituary

Prominent child psychiatrist Robert Shaw, father of two local men who purchased and rehabilitated the Smiley Building on East Third Avenue, died March 26, 2009, at his home in Bolinas, Calif., of complications from spinal stenosis. He was 82.

Dr. Shaw was born in New York City in 1927 to Sarah (Sadie) and Charles Lionel (Lou) Shaw. He graduated from the Horace Mann School for Boys, the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. He trained first in adult psychiatry, then child psychiatry, and later broadened his focus to include family and community psychiatry. He is remembered by family, friends and patients as a brilliant and creative teacher and physician.

He is a Life Fellow of the American Orthopsychiatric Association and the American Psychiatric Association and was a former director of the New York Council on Child Psychiatry. While at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, his department founded the first "mother bank," a volunteer corps of women who would stand in for mothers who were unable to feed their newborn infants.

In 1958, he co-authored a paper that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association that helped bring about the end of insulin therapy for psychotic patients. Throughout his professional career, he wrote many influential papers and articles, many concentrating on community mental health and family therapy.

He was professor of psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York and also the director of Children's Mental Health Services at Lincoln Hospital. He was a psychiatric consultant to the Riverdale School in Riverdale, N.Y., and director of the Treatment Program at the Wiltwyck School for Boys.

In 1970, he moved with his family to Berkeley, Calif., where he was named director of family and children's mental health services for the City of Berkeley. He also was a visiting professor at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

With his wife, Judith, Dr. Shaw established the Family Institute of Berkeley, a teaching institute for psychiatrists and other physicians and health workers. While there, he pioneered the school of Contextual Therapy and taught it across Europe and the United States. His 2004 book, The Epidemic, was a critique of overly permissive parenting techniques and the overdiagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.

He referred to therapy as "my art" and is remembered as a dear friend, mentor and an "old-school gentleman" by family and friends.

Dr. Shaw is survived by his wife, Judith; daughters, Sarah Shaw DuBois and Lizzy Shaw; sons, Charles Shaw and John Shaw, both of Durango; three granddaughters and several nieces and nephews.

A memorial service in celebration of Dr. Shaw's life will be held April 25, 2009, in Berkeley, Calif. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to one of Dr. Shaw's favorite organizations: KWMR Community Radio in Point Reyes, Calif., or West Marin Senior Services in Point Reyes, or a cause of the donor's choice.