Naomi Feil (July 22, 1932 – December 24, 2023) was a German-American social worker who developed

validation therapy Validation therapy was developed by Naomi Feil for older people with cognitive impairments and dementia. Feil's own approach classifies individuals with cognitive impairment as having one of four stages in a continuum of dementia. These stages ar ...

(holistic therapy that focuses on empathy and provides means for people with

cognitive deficit Cognitive impairment is an inclusive term to describe any characteristic that acts as a barrier to the cognition process or different areas of cognition. Cognition, also known as cognitive function, refers to the mental processes of how a person ...

and

dementia Dementia is a syndrome associated with many neurodegenerative diseases, characterized by a general decline in cognitive abilities that affects a person's ability to perform activities of daily living, everyday activities. This typically invo ...

to communicate).

Early life and education

Naomi Feil was born in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, Germany, on July 22, 1932, and immigrated to the United States in July 1937, growing up first in New York City and then, from age 8 on, in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

at the Montefiore Home for the Aged where her parents worked. Her mother was the head of the Social Service Department and her father was the administrator. After a period of early adulthood in New York City, acting and studying theater at New York's

Herbert Berghof Herbert Berghof (September 13, 1909 – November 5, 1990) was an American actor, director and acting teacher.Kennedy, Dennis. ''The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance'', Oxford Univ. Press (2010) p. 61 Early life Berghof was born in ...

Studio, Feil resumed her lifelong calling, acquiring a master's degree in Social Work from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

and returning to Cleveland to begin her professional life at Montefiore, incorporating her natural flair for improvisation and theatrical skills into her many decades of teaching and training here and abroad, which she was still doing after moving to

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie River (Oregon), McKenzie and Willamette River, Willamette rivers, ...

, in 2015. In November 2023, she relayed to the worldwide network of validation therapy practitioners that she had metastatic cancer. She was predeceased by her husband, educational filmmaker Edward Feil. Naomi Feil died in Eugene, Oregon, on December 24, 2023, at the age of 91.

Career

Between 1963 and 1980 Naomi developed

as alternative to traditional methods of working with the severely disoriented aged people. ''Validation: The Feil Method'' was her first book published in 1982 followed by ''The Validation Breakthrough,'' which was her second, published in 1993.

References

Daniel Berger composed for the NYT this profile of N Feil which expands upon and reinforces details shared in this entry
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/12/20/magazine/naomi-feil-dementia.html
It appears that Dr. Feil’s daughter has continued her work. 1932 births 2023 deaths American gerontologists Women gerontologists Columbia University School of Social Work alumni Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States Naturalized citizens of the United States Deaths from cancer in Oregon {{Treatment-stub