Influential Woman in Mental Health

Highlighting some of the many women who have advocated for mental health care.

 

 

Dorthea Dix played an instrumental role in the founding or expansion of more than 30 hospitals for the treatment

of mental illness and was a leading international figure challenging the idea that people with a mental illness could

not be cured or helped.

 

Anna Freud was a psychologist who was one of the foremost practitioners in child psychology. She was the first to

introduce the idea of defense mechanisms into the psychological field.

 

Bebe Moore Campbell was an American author, journalist, teacher, and national advocate who dedicated her life to

advocating for the mental health needs of the Black community.

 

Throughout her career as a social psychologist, Dr. Clark forever changed the field of psychology with her research

on child development and racial trauma. Her groundbreaking work, in part, led to the desegregation of American

schools.

 

Ellen Kitch Childs was an American clinical psychologist who tirelessly advocated for the rights of

marginalized women, sex workers, and the LGBTQ+ community. She helped found the Association for Women in

Psychology.

 

Marsha Linehan, a prominent psychologist, is renowned for pioneering Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which

emphasizes balance between acceptance of reality and fostering personal growth through behavioral and cognitive

changes.

 

Glenn Close Co-founded Bring Change to Mind in 2009, a nonprofit foundation. The mission of the San Francisco-

based nonprofit is to encourage people to talk more openly and empathically about mental illness.

 

Lady Gaga has been a powerful voice for mental wellness and suicide prevention. She started the Born this Way

foundation with her mother Cynthia Germanotta. The foundation's mission is to support young people, reduce

bullying and to help those who are struggling with mental illness.