Mildred Newman

Newman's mother was from Russia,^[2] and Newman grew up in Manhattan.^[3] Newman gained an undergraduate degree (1940) and a master's degree (1943) from Hunter College.^[4] Prior to working as a psychologist, Newman spent time studying modern dance and was an artists' model.^[1]: 279 She trained as a psychoanalyst at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, which was founded by Theodor Reik.^{[1]: 280 [4]}

Newman started her psychoanalyst practice in New York City in the middle of the 1950s.^[5] She realized that her patients needed a place to have positive feedback, and in 1971 she and her husband Bernard Berkowitz started a book that became How to Be Your Own Best Friend.^[5] In 2018, an article in the New York Post attributed the self-help industry that followed back to this 1971 book.^[5]

Newman worked with many prominent clients, starting with Paula Prentiss,^{[1]: 280–281}Anthony Perkins,^{[1]: 283–284} George Segal, Neil Simon, Nora Ephron, and others.^[6] She and her husband treated so many celebrities that they were known as "therapists of the stars".^[2] She and her husband also participated in social events with her clients.^{[1]: 287–288}

Newman was a proponent of conversion therapy, famously using electroshock with Perkins to treat his homosexuality. Such views and treatments were not unusual for mainstream medical professionals of the era.^[7][8][9] Perkins's friend and collaborator Stephen Sondheim described Newman to author Mark Harris as "completely unethical and a danger to humanity."^[10][11]

Her first husband was Philip Newman, though they later divorced.^{[when?][1]: 280} She met her second husband, Bernard Berkowitz as a teenager^[2] waiting in line for a concert, and they married in 1962.^[1]: 280 By 1978 they were sharing recipes in a newspaper article that was one of a series on celebrity recipes.^[12] Newman died of a pulmonary embolism on November 6, 2001, aged 81.^[3][4]

• Newman, Mildred; Stern, E. Mark (1964). "The Age Game". Psychoanalytic Review. 51B (2): 63–74. Retrieved 2022-09-05.^[13]
• Newman, Mildred; Berkowitz, Bernard (1974). How to be your own best friend; a conversation with two psychoanalysts. Jean Owen ([1st U.S. ed.] ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-24333-1. OCLC 1338573.^[14]
• Newman, Mildred (2016). How to be awake and alive. Bernard Berkowitz. New York, NY: Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-399-59037-5. OCLC 953848210.^[15]
• Newman, Mildred (1977). How to take charge of your life. Bernard Berkowitz (1st ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-142192-7. OCLC 2907334.^[16]