Key Facts
Career & Education
About
Freddy Harold Frankel (1924–2021) was a South African-born psychiatrist who immigrated to the United States after earning his medical degree (M.B.Ch.B.) and diploma in psychiatry (D.P.M.) from the University of the Witwatersrand. He served as Chief Resident in Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1952, joined the Harvard Medical School faculty in 1969, and became Psychiatrist-in-Chief at Beth Israel Hospital (later Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) from 1986 to 1997. As Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, he was a leading specialist in psychosomatic medicine and hypnosis research, authoring Hypnosis: Trance as a Coping Mechanism (1976). Frankel held prominent roles including chair of the Society of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis (1978–1982), president of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society (1971–1972), and chair of the American Psychiatric Association's Task Force on Electroconvulsive Therapy (1978). He criticized the misuse of hypnosis in contexts such as UFO abduction cases (1994) and recovered memory prosecutions during the False Memory Syndrome controversy, serving as an advisor to the False Memory Syndrome Foundation and signing related amicus briefs. Married to Betty Lilian Silberman since 1947 until his death, he had three children—Neville, Isabel, and Dr. Allan—along with twelve grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren. He resided in the Boston area and died at Lasell Village in Newton, Massachusetts, on September 8, 2021, at age 97.