Scientific Meetings

Join us for the first part of the LIVE ACROSS TIME program series, where Dr. Henry Massie, MD, and Dr. Nathan Szajnberg, MD, present the groundbreaking 30-year prospective longitudinal study on emotional development, spanning from birth to age 30. In this session, we delve into the overarching findings of this extensive project, offering a comprehensive understanding of the emotional journeys of our participants, and a preview of the 60-year followup findings.

This study began its exploration during the third trimester of pregnancy, capturing intimate moments of mother-child interaction through filmed observations. It continued with developmental assessments and psychoanalytically oriented interviews involving parents and children. These participants were closely monitored throughout their journey into adulthood, with Dr. Massie and Dr. Szajnberg adopting an attachment-based perspective.

Our discussion will highlight the relative significance of early attachment experiences in contrast to childhood trauma in shaping emotional growth. Within the narratives of some participants, we’ll uncover how emotional and physical trauma may remain concealed, either unconsciously or intentionally, during meticulous interviews, only to emerge years later.

We invite you to explore how these profound findings can empower clinicians to make a lasting impact on individuals who have endured emotional and physical trauma. Discover the transformative potential of this study in guiding the healing and growth of those who have embarked on unique life paths.

Henry Massie, MD is an adult, child and adolescent psychiatrist, and longtime member of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. He was formerly Training Director in the Child Psychiatry Residency Program at St. Mary’s Hospital, San Francisco, and formerly Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California School of Medicine. He has published extensively on child development and its disturbances in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, and with Nathan Szajnberg authored Lives Across Time: Paths to Emotional Health and Illness From Birth to 30 in 76 people. He has also developed, with B. Kay Campbell, the Massie-Campbell Scale of Attachment During Stress Scale which is a screening tool for troubled parent-infant interaction which is in use world wide. Dr. Massie is based in Berkeley, CA.

Nathan Moses Szajnberg, MD completed psychoanalytic training at the St. Louis Institute.  He is the retired Freud Professor of Psychoanalysis at the Hebrew University. He has received two NIMH awards in Adolescence and Infant Psychiatry and worked with Dan Stern, Bruno Bettelheim, Peter Blos and Bob Wallerstein. He was the Wallerstein Research Fellow in Psychoanalysis 2005-16. He received the Ticho Award in 2012.

He has written several books on development in Ethiopian children, Israeli soldiers and co-authored Lives Across Time with Henry Massie.

His most recent books are Psychic Mimesis from Bible and Homer to Now and The Secret Symmetry of Maimonides and Freud 2023. His third novel (2023) is A Windmill, A Knight, A Ghost, A Jerusalem.