~ April 4, 2020
James A. Gooch ’59, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst for adults and children, died April 4, 2020, of a terminal illness at his home in Beverly Hills, California, where he lived and practiced for over fifty years.
Born in Stanford, Kentucky, to a loving family, Dr. Gooch left for college at 16, graduating from Andrews University. After medical school, he pursued a residency in psychiatry at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital (now Cedars-Sinai). From 1964 to 1966, he served as Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy in Long Beach while completing analytic training.
In 1977, Dr. Gooch became the assistant medical director and director of education and research at Reiss-Davis Child Study Center, where he remained chief psychoanalyst until 2004. He served for a number of years as professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Southern California. From 1981 to 1986, Dr. Gooch served as chair of the Department of Psychoanalysis at the California Graduate Institute.
From 1984 to 1990, he served as the founding president of the Psychoanalytic Center of California, an independent institute, which became a component society of the International Psychoanalytic Association in 1993. An analysand of Wilfred Bion, Dr. Gooch participated in numerous international conferences devoted to Bion’s innovative analytic theories.
He is survived by his loving wife of 62 years, Shirley, also a psychoanalyst; four sons, David (Diane), Todd (Kathy), Adam, and Alan (Vicky-Lynn); and eleven grandchildren, Anika, Camilla, James, Zoe, Eli, Maggie, Liam, Anna, Gretchen, Stella, and Delilah. He was predeceased by his younger sister, Phyllis.
(Source: Legacy.com)
