Paula Jean Clayton (December 1, 1934 – September 4, 2021) was an American psychiatrist. She was the first female chairperson of a major psychiatric department in the United States. She is known for destigmatising mental illness, rigorous data driven research methods to study psychiatry, especially depression and

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder (BD), previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of Depression (mood), depression and periods of abnormally elevated Mood (psychology), mood that each last from days to weeks, and in ...

Early life and education

Paula Jean Limberg was born on December 1, 1934, in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

. She was one of three daughters born to Oscar Limberg and his wife, Dorothea Pflasterer. Her father worked for a clothing company, and her mother was a suffragist. She married Charles Clayton, and enrolled at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

as a pre-medicine student, and graduated in 1956. She returned to her hometown to attend the

Washington University School of Medicine Washington University School of Medicine (WashU Medicine) is the medical school of Washington University in St. Louis, located in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1891, the School of Medicine shares a ca ...

(WashU Medicine). Clayton was one of four women to graduate from WashU Medicine in 1960. She had a child during her fourth year of medical school which influenced her to choose a residency in psychiatry instead of internal medicine.

Career

Clayton worked as an intern at St. Luke's Hospital and subsequently specialized in psychiatry during her residency at Barnes and Renard Hospitals. From 1964 to 1965, Clayton was chief resident. Upon completing her residency, Clayton joined the WashU Medicine faculty. At WashU Medicine, Clayton worked closely with

Eli Robins Eli Robins (1921 Texas – 1994 Washington) was an American psychiatrist who played a pivotal role in establishing the way mental disorders are researched and diagnosed today. Early career Robins finished his medical training and residencies at Ha ...

, George Winokur,

Samuel Guze Samuel Barry Guze (October 18, 1923 – July 19, 2000) was an American psychiatrist, medical educator, and researcher. A graduate of City College of New York and Washington University School of Medicine, he was an influential psychiatrist. He ...

, and Ted Reich to develop what became known as the

Feighner Criteria The Feighner Criteria are a set of influential psychiatric diagnostic criteria developed at Washington University in St. Louis between the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Overview The criteria are named after a psychiatric paper published in 1972 ...

, a psychiatric diagnostic criteria based on the

medical model Medicine is the science and practice of caring for patients, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

, moving psychiatry away from

introspection Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's s ...

and

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...

. She was promoted to full professor in 1976. In 1980, four years later, Clayton became the first woman in the United States to chair a department of psychiatry, when she left for the

University of Minnesota Medical School The University of Minnesota Medical School is a medical school at the University of Minnesota. It is a combination of three campuses located in Minneapolis, Duluth, and St. Cloud, Minnesota. The medical school has more than 17,000 alumni as of 2 ...

. In 1999, Clayton stepped down from Minnesota. Between 2001 and 2005, Clayton was a part-time professor of psychiatry at the

University of New Mexico School of Medicine The University of New Mexico School of Medicine (UNM School of Medicine) is a division of the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (UNM HSC) located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The UNM School of Medicine is home to a variety of degree-g ...

. From 2006 to 2014, she was based in New York City, and served the

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) is a voluntary health organization that advocates for research and education around suicide, based in New York City, with a public policy office based in Washington, D.C. The organization's s ...

as its medical director. The ''

Journal of Affective Disorders The ''Journal of Affective Disorders'' is a peer-reviewed medical journal covering research on all aspects of affective disorders. It is published by Elsevier and its editors-in-chief are P. Brambilla and J.C. Soares. It was established in 1979 and ...

'' published a

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

to commemorate Clayton's career in 2006.

Personal life

Paula Clayton had a daughter and two sons with Charles Clayton, whom she later divorced. In 2015, Clayton retired and moved to

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commerci ...

, where she died on September 4, 2021, of a viral infection.

Legacy

Paula Clayton worked to destigmatise mental illness and "was the first person to demonstrate, through research, that

bereavement Grief is the response to the loss of something deemed important, particularly to the death of a person to whom or animal to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also ha ...

, while phenotypically mirroring the symptoms of depressive illness, is a distinct, non-clinical entity". As a female chair of the University of Minnesota's Department of Psychiatry in 1980, Clayton brought equality to the department, including equal pay, raising female faculty members’ salaries to match their male counterparts.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clayton, Paula 1934 births 2021 deaths American psychiatrists American women psychiatrists University of Michigan alumni Washington University School of Medicine alumni Scientists from St. Louis 20th-century American women physicians 20th-century American physicians Physicians from Missouri Infectious disease deaths in California Washington University School of Medicine faculty University of Minnesota faculty