Mind, Brain, Body, and Behavior

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 57

NIMH Intramural Clinical

Research Program

Felix also needed to secure someone to head the clinical research within
the NIMH’s intramural research program. In the summer of 1952 he
asked Robert A. Cohen whether he would be interested in the position.
Cohen was then Clinical Director of Chestnut Lodge, a small psycho­
analytic hospital in Rockville, Maryland. He was a consultant in psy­
chiatry to the National Naval Medical Center, and on the Panel on
Human Relations and Morale of the Research and Development Board
of the Office of Strategic Services within the Department of Defense.^1
Cohen had both a Ph.D. in neurophysiology, from the University
of Chicago, and an M.D., was an examiner for the national psychiatry
and neurology board, and was active in the early psychoanalytic move­
ment.^2 Cohen had many misgivings about the invitation. He thought
the program plan was too amorphous, that it had to be developed too
quickly, that the salaries he could count on to recruit staff were too low,
and that the recruitment of a large group of newly formed professionals
who could work together for the first time would be extraordinarily
difficult.^3 However, Cohen had personal knowledge of some members
of the NIMH staff, and Felix had offered him some additional senior-
grade positions to fill and had reassured him that he would have com­
plete freedom in how he could organize the program. These incentives,
combined with his own belief that the government should take re­
sponsibility for such a universal problem as mental illness, convinced
him to accept the position.^4