58 FARRERAS
Robert A. Cohen, M.D., Ph.D.
Courtesy of the National Institute
of Mental HealthAfter Cohen arrived at the NIH on December 31, 1952, he soon found
that recruiting staff for this new governmental endeavor would prove as
difficult as he had suspected. Longtime colleagues and associates who
had promised to go if they were called up for service in the Korean War
were not drafted and therefore did not have to leave their established
positions. The comparatively lower salaries that Cohen was able to offer
and the lingering fear of a McCarthyist government possibly pressuring
any research agendas also worked against his recruiting efforts.^5
When the national psychiatry and neurology specialty boards began
recognizing two years of service as criteria toward certification, however,
Cohen was suddenly deluged with applications from young psychiatric
residents striving not to be drafted. He now had his choice among
outstanding applicants and eagerly set about recruiting those with the
most multidisciplinary backgrounds. He particularly sought psychiatrists
who had graduate degrees or experience in other fields besides psychiatry.
At the time, psychiatry did not have “a powerful theory of behavior,” and
Cohen believed it would be necessary to go beyond the confines of the
mental hospital in order to learn more about human behavior.^6 Psychia
trists with graduate degrees in other fields, however, were not abundant,
and his choices fell upon those whose interests or experience were in the
areas of research he envisioned for the new program.^7
Cohen had two overarching goals for his program: one was directed
toward improving treatments for a variety of psychiatric disorders and the
other was directed toward developing a better theory of normal behavior