COHEN 189obtain a reversal of that decision. Evarts and Semmes came to the
NIMH–he to the Psychosomatic Medicine Branch and she to the
Laboratory of Psychology. Philippe V. Cardon had been a resident at
Bellevue Hospital and had worked with both Harold and Stewart
Woolf at New York Hospital. He and Charles Savage, from the Naval
Medical Center, came to the Psychosomatic Medicine Branch. Robert
Pittenger, who had been Chief Resident at Yale University, Juliana Day
from the Johns Hopkins University, and Irving Ryckoff from Chestnut
Lodge came to the Adult Psychiatry Branch. Donald Bloch from Chest
nut Lodge and D. Wells Goodrich from Harvard University came to
the Child Research Branch. A late appointment was that of Robert N.
Butler; I appointed him to the Psychosomatic Medicine Branch, where
he joined Seymour Perlin from Columbia University.
The Clinical Center’s opening date was postponed from March to
July 7, 1953. Before that date, I recruited Fritz Redl as chief of the Child
Research Branch. He accepted the appointment even though most of the
staff positions available to him had been filled. He was Distinguished Pro
fessor of Behavioral Science at Wayne State University. Since his student
days, he had been a close friend and colleague of Erik Erikson. Redl was
widely known for his studies of the disorganization and breakdown of
behavior controls, and he had a degree of success in developing treatment
programs for hyperaggressive and antisocial children. Two of his books,
Children Who Hate and Controls From Within, were almost required read
ing for those engaged in primary and secondary education. Redl settled
in quickly after his arrival, met with the professional and support staff
who had already been assigned to the Child Research Branch, and began
the development of the branch with Bloch, Goodrich and Earle Silber.
For the first project, they gathered a group of NIH staff children. They
became our first normal volunteers. These children helped staff get
acquainted with each other and with the institution in which they would
work. Then they admitted a group of children who had been uncontrol
lable in primary school.
In the first six months of operation of the clinical program, the following
self-selected studies were undertaken. Wynne, Savage and Cholden were
interested in ward organization and psychotherapy. Day and Ryckoff treated