The Boston Globe

Therapist accused of sex abuse resigns license
By Alison Bass and Judy Foreman
April 4, 1989

On the eve of a public hearing on complaints that he sexually abused three female patients, Dr. Lionel A. Schwartz, a psychiatrist affiliated with Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Hospital, last night gave up his license to practice medicine in Massachusetts.
Schwartz, 66, who sent a copy of his resignation to the Globe, said he wants his resignation to become effective May 15 to allow him time to terminate with patients he is currently seeing and refer them to other therapists. It remained unclear whether the board would accept this grace period. Last night’s resignation does mean that today’s scheduled hearing will not take place, a board representative said.
The resignation of a Massachusetts medical license is “the stiffest of all possible outcomes” and means that Schwartz will not be able to practice medicine in any state, said Edmund Sullivan, hearing officer for the board of registration in medicine, last night.
Sullivan added that voluntary resignation of a license is irrevocable, unlike board revocation of a license, which may be appealed five years later. Sullivan speculated that Schwartz chose to relinquish his license to avoid going through a public hearing.
In a telephone interview, Schwartz said last night he was resigning “largely because of the publicity you threw at us. . . . I thought with the atmosphere the way it was, there would be no chance of getting an unbiased opinion.”
In recent weeks, the Globe chronicled the cases of three women who charged that Schwartz had sex with them while they were his patients in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Following publication of the stories, Cambridge Hospital officials announced that Schwartz’s part-time appointment there would be allowed to lapse in July. Schwartz himself allowed his admitting privileges at McLean Hospital in Belmont to lapse in December, before the publicity.
One of the women, a suburban mother of two who, like another of the patients, was a Wellesley College student at the time of the abuse, is suing Schwartz for malpractice.
Dr. Judith Herman, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an authority on sexual abuse, particularly by doctors, last night said Schwartz’ case illustrates “the courage of these particular women who came forward and were willing to endure the public exposure and humiliation in order, really, to get the truth out and set some sort of limits on this kind of exploitative behavior. I think these women really are to be honored; it took a lot of courage.
“Now, this will encourage others to come forward. There are a lot of reasons victims don’t come forward, but they include a kind of pessimism and cynicism and fear that no one will believe them or do anything about it. This is now a very healthy development because it shows that society is willing to take complaints seriously and take some action.”
In a statement issued by his lawyer, Stanley M. Epstein, Schwartz referred to extensive publicity about his case – in newspapers and on television – and asked that his resignation and statement be given “equal publicity as the events which preceded them.”
In previous correspondence with the board, Schwartz had admitted he had sex with all three women patients who have brought the complaints against him. In his resignation letter last night, however, Schwartz emphasized that there had been no complaints brought against him for behavior in the past 15 years, and that he had “expressed his profound remorse for his actions.”
One of the women with whom Schwartz had sex, Janet Wohlberg, was featured prominently in Globe stories and also appeared yesterday on WBZ-TV’s “People Are Talking.” She was unavailable for comment last night.
Wohlberg originally took her complaints against Schwartz to the Boston Psychoanalytic Society while she was in therapy following the murder of her husband. But the society, which trains analysts, did not forward her charges to the state medical board or to Wellesley College, where Schwartz counseled students 18 years ago. The society did insist Schwartz receive counseling.
In a Globe story published yesterday, Wohlberg said she asked Schwartz at the time whether he was afraid she or any of his other patients might someday report he had sex with them. According to Wohlberg, Schwartz replied, ” ‘I pick my people carefully.’ And he told another women patient who asked the same thing that he could always say she was delusional.”
As reported yesterday, Schwartz said he did not recall having said this and added, “You’re talking about something that happened over 15 years ago. Things change in 15 years, people change. I’ve had a whole course of rehabilitation since then. Don’t you believe in redemption?”