Salvador Minuchin - Career History

Career History

Salvador Minuchin served as a physician in the Israeli army after obtaining his degree in medicine. Once his service was finished, he travelled to New York to be trained in child psychiatry with Nathan Ackerman. When his training with Ackerman was complete, Minuchin returned to Israel to assist displaced children as a child psychiatrist (Nichols, 2010). In 1954, he returned to the United States to be trained in psychoanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute with Harry Stack Sullivan. After completing his psychoanalytic training, Minuchin worked as a child psychiatrist at the Wiltwyck School for delinquent boys. It was at the Wiltwyck School that Minuchin decided that treating whole families would be worthwhile.

While he held his position at the Wiltwyck School, Minuchin developed a form of family therapy with his co-workers. Their method involved Minuchin or another psychiatrist performing a therapy session with a family while the other psychiatrists viewed the session through a one-way mirror (Nichols, 2010). Observing one another work allowed the therapists to learn techniques easily and led Minuchin to develop structural family therapy. In 1962, once Minuchin had generated his theoretical formulations for family structure, he travelled to Palo Alto to work with Jay Haley. Minuchin's work at the Miltwyck School led to his first book, Families of the Slums (1967), which outlined his theoretical model of family therapy.

In 1965, Minuchin became the director of the Child Guidance Clinic in Philadelphia. He stepped down from this position in 1976 to become the head of training at the center until 1981, when he left Philadelphia to practice and teach child psychiatry in New York (Nichols, 2010). In 1996, he moved to Boston and retired from his career. While still in retirement, Minuchin continues to travel the world and teach child psychiatry.