Leopold Bellak

Born:	06-22-1916
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled student

Leopold BELLAK, born on June 22nd, 1916 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), son of Siegfried Bellak (merchant), lived in Wien 8, Florianigasse 60, was enrolled finally in the spring term 1938 at the Medical School in the 3rd year of his studies.
He emigrated to the USA in 1938 and became a US-citizen in 1943. He served in the Army Medical Corps in World War II. After studying medicine at the University of Vienna for three years, he went on to study psychology on a scholarship at Boston University and on a fellowship at Harvard, receiving M.A. degrees at both, in 1939 and 1942. He completed his M.D. at New York Medical College in 1944 and trained at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington and the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
He became a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychologist best known for his contributions in the fields of psychological testing and abnormal psychology (Thematic Apperception Test, known as the T.A.T., which uses a series of evocative pictures to reveal subjects' unconscious fantasies, and the development of a version of the test for children, the Children's Apperception Test, referred to as the C.A.T.). He was on the staff at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University from 1971 to 1988. He also maintained a private practice in psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Larchmont, starting in 1941.
He died in Mamaroneck, NY/USA in March 24th, 2000.

Lit.: Leopold BELLAK, Confrontation in Vienna, Larchmont/NY 1993; SAXON 2000; BLUMESBERGER 2002, I, 89; Austrian Heritage Collection at the Leo Baeck Institut New York.