In Memoriam: Elise Snyder, MD, A Legacy of Mentoring to Psychotherapists in China
Key Takeaways
- Elise Snyder, MD, combined academic leadership in psychoanalysis with a sustained commitment to psychotherapy education, culminating in national recognition through the Sigmund Freud Award.
- Founded in 2001, the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance used teleconferencing and videoconferencing to scale psychoanalytic training by pairing American analysts with Chinese learners.
Remembering Elise Snyder, MD, 91, who pioneered CAPA and video-based psychoanalytic training that bridged US-China mental health stigma and culture.
PSYCHIATRIC VIEWS ON THE DAILY NEWS
It feels eerie to provide a eulogy on a psychiatrist right after the last column on the importance of preparing for death and dying. But I suppose that is the point.
I just found out that Elise Snyder, MD, an associate clinical professor at my Alma Mater, Yale, died on January 9, 2026, at the age of 91. She was an expert on psychoanalysis and psychotherapy education, and was a pioneering innovator on teleconferencing and videoconferencing such training, particularly in China. Starting in 2001, she established the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA). CAPA went on to connect scores of American analysts with Chinese students.
Her career was an unusual one, starting with her desire for her own personal psychoanalysis at the age of 16. Her early focus was bookended much later by receiving the Sigmund Freud Award from the American Association of Psychoanalytic Psychiatrists. That influence was also passed on through her daughters, one who became a psychoanalyst and the other an English professor.
The obstacles to overcome were great. Not only were there the usual cross-cultural challenges, but more: an authoritarian governmental context for free speech and thinking; the specific cultural differences such as “eating bitterness”; and great stigma against mental illness.1 It succeeded to such a level that it boomeranged back to increase psychoanalytic interest for Asian Americans.2
Cultural boundaries can be successfully crossed in psychiatry and elsewhere with dedication, curiosity, concern, and something of value to be exchanged on each side.
Dr Moffic is an award-winning psychiatrist who specialized in the cultural and ethical aspects of psychiatry and is now in retirement and retirement as a private pro bono community psychiatrist. A prolific writer and speaker, he has done a weekday column titled “Psychiatric Views on the Daily News” and a weekly video, “Psychiatry & Society,” since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. He was chosen to receive the 2024 Abraham Halpern Humanitarian Award from the American Association for Social Psychiatry. Previously, he received the Administrative Award in 2016 from the American Psychiatric Association, the one-time designation of being a Hero of Public Psychiatry from the Speaker of the Assembly of the APA in 2002, and the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 1991. He presented the third Rabbi Jeffrey B. Stiffman lecture at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis on Sunday, May 19, 2024. He is an advocate and activist for mental health issues related to climate instability, physician burnout, and xenophobia. He is now editing the final book in a 4-volume series on religions and psychiatry for Springer: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianity, and now The Eastern Religions, and Spirituality. He serves on the Editorial Board of Psychiatric Times.
References
1. Osnos E. Meet Dr Freud. The New Yorker. January 2, 2011. Accessed February 6, 2026.
2. Messina K, Gorman R, Scharff D. Building the Chinese American Psychoanalytical Alliance. The American Psychoanalyst. June 2025. Accessed February 6, 2026.
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