A Field in Mourning

Psychology feels the loss of Paul Wellstone.

By Colin Allen, published on October 01, 2002

Among the many mourners who attended the October 29 memorial service held in honor of Minnesota Democratic senator Paul Wellstone were several members of the mental health field, where his loss is particularly painful due to Wellstone's strong advocacy for the profession.

Propelled by his own brother's battle with depression, Wellstone helped to implement change in the national policy concerning health care coverage for the mentally ill. The Mental Health Parity Act of 1996, cosponsored by Wellstone and New Mexico republican senator Pete Domenici, legislated that coverage of mental illness be on par with that of physical illness.

Senator Wellstone worked closely with the Minnesota Psychological Association (MPA). Here, three MPA members remember the late senator:

"We are all just very sad and very shocked," says Myra Barrett, Ph.D., president of the MPA. "We are going to miss him. I don't know who will step in to do what he was doing. Even those who did not support him politically are appalled by what has happened."

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"It is a devastating loss to us," says Seymour Gross, Ph.D., of the Minneapolis-based Hennepin County Mental Health Center. "He has been extremely supportive of mental health. Those of us who worked with him over the years have been particularly hit. We'll miss him."

"There just aren't too many better friends to the mental health field than was Paul; [his wife] Sheila, as well," says Denise Wilder, M.Eq., who has a private practice in Minneapolis. "They were quite a pair. It is a shock and a loss. These were people who did extraordinary things."