Presidents' Council
Ellen is a child and adult psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Cambridge, MA. She retired from the faculties of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in 2019. Currently she is a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute where she has held numerous leadership positions, including as Board Chair in 2010-2013. Ellen continues to teach and supervise trainees in psychoanalysis and residents in psychiatry. Her particular interests include early child development and the effects of trauma on children and adults who have experienced physical and sexual abuse as well as other forms of deprivation and attachment difficulties.
In the past ten years, Ellen has served on the Board of Directors of the Brookline Center for Community Mental Health (MA) and on the board of a small NGO, Supporting Child Caregivers. SCG works in India, Pakistan, El Salvador and Peru teaching local nurses and nursing students how to educate and support new parents and infants with the goal of fostering secure attachments between caregivers and babies. Research informs us that this aids healthy child and adult development.
Dr. Blumenthal is a graduate of Wellesley College, Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard residencies in adult and child psychiatry. She lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband David Blumenthal, MD MPP. The Blumenthals have two children, both physicians, and five grandchildren.