Lydia Rapoport

Her father, Samuel Rapoport, emigrated to New York City in 1928, in part due to “increased antisemitism and resurgent German nationalism.”[1] Lydia stayed in Vienna with her mother and brother in Vienna while he finished high school, staying until 1932.

Rapoport attuned the public schools in NYC before graduating from Hunter College at the age of nineteen and earning a master’s degree from the Smith College School for Social Work at 21. She studied at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1959-1960 under Eric Lindemann and Gerald Caplan.[1]

After doing casework, working with children and at the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Rapoport earned a certificate in child therapy from the Institute of Psychoanalysis and a Fulbright scholarship in 1952 to the London School of Economics.[1]

Rapoport moved to California to be near her brother, in 1954. She began her associates with University of California, Berkeley as a field supervisor for their students before becoming a faculty member a year later and full professor in 1969. In 1969, she established the Community Mental Health Training Program at their School of Social Welfare.[1]

Her work is “an integral part of the foundation of current crisis intervention and crisis-oriented brief therapy. She identified the goals of crisis intervention: relief of symptoms, restoration of precrisis functioning, understanding of precipitants, and identification of remedial measures. This model continues in use today.” [1]

• Working with Families in Crisis: An Exploration in Preventive Intervention