[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 6 (Monday, January 12, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S301]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO EDYTHE SALZBERGER

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would like to pay tribute to Edythe 
Salzberger, who passed away at the age of 99 last month. Edythe devoted 
her life to the belief that the creative process is both healing and 
life enhancing. An interest in art created by psychiatric patients led 
her to the Hillcrest Children's Center, a home for emotionally 
disturbed children, where she began her years of service to the 
disabled and distressed. A pioneer in the field of art therapy, Mrs. 
Salzberger wrote numerous articles, trained clinicians and other mental 
health professionals, established an art therapy program at Chaim Sheba 
Medical Center in Israel, and helped found the Washington chapter of 
what later became the American Art Therapy Association. Art therapy is 
based on the belief that the creative process involved in artistic 
self-expression helps people solve problems, develop interpersonal and 
conflict resolution skills, manage behavior, reduce stress, increase 
self-esteem and self-awareness, and achieve insight. It is used to 
treat patients of all ages dealing with a host of problems related to 
emotional and mental disorders, substance abuse, trauma, loss, 
neurological injuries, and psychosocial difficulties resulting from 
medical illness. A life-long painter, Edythe Salzberger combined her 
desire to create with her desire to help. She will be missed not only 
by friends and family but by all the patients and practitioners of the 
field she helped pioneer and the respected professional association she 
helped create.
  I ask unanimous consent to have the obituary of Edythe Salzberger 
from the December 15, 2008, edition of the Washington Post printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From washingtonpost.com, Dec. 15, 2008]

             Edythe Salzberger, 99; Pioneer in Art Therapy

       Edythe Woolf Polsby Salzberger, 99, one of the first art 
     therapists in the Washington area, died Dec. 5 of anemia at 
     her home in Chevy Chase.
       Mrs. Salzberger was a painter in her early years who 
     received an associate's degree from the Rhode Island School 
     of Design in 1931. She studied painting at the Museum of Fine 
     Arts in Boston and later with artists Robert Brackman and 
     William Shulgold.
       She developed an interest in art created by psychiatric 
     patients and in 1950 began to study projective drawings under 
     the direction of Fritz Wengraf in New York.
       ``I always struggled between painting as an end in itself 
     and practicing art therapy,'' she once wrote.
       Moving to Chevy Chase in 1950, she began working as an art 
     therapist in 1957 at Hillcrest Children's Center, a 
     residential treatment facility for emotionally disturbed 
     children. The center, located on Nebraska Avenue NW on the 
     site of what is now the National Presbyterian Church, later 
     closed for lack of funding and was incorporated into the 
     psychiatric services offered by the National Children's 
     Medical Center. She also provided training to clinicians at 
     D.C. General Hospital on the use of art therapy, and 
     established an art therapy program at Chaim Sheba Medical 
     Center at Tel Hashomer in Israel.
       Art therapy was a relatively new discipline when Mrs. 
     Salzberger began her career, and she became one of the 
     founders of the Washington chapter of what later became the 
     American Art Therapy Association. She published numerous 
     articles in professional journals and produced one of the 
     first films demonstrating the use of art therapy. Titled 
     ``Michael,'' the film was designed for use in university 
     classes.
       She was born Edythe Woolf in Providence, R.I. In 1931, she 
     married her college sweetheart, Daniel Polsby II, and lived 
     in New Haven and Norwich, Conn., where her husband was a 
     businessman and farmer. She worked on the family farm during 
     World War II, when agricultural workers were hard to find. 
     The farm produced as many as a thousand eggs daily; they were 
     sold under contract to an Army camp on Cape Cod.
       Her husband died in 1946, and she moved to Chevy Chase with 
     her three sons. She was one of the founders of Temple Sinai 
     in the District and was active in a number of Jewish 
     charitable organizations.
       She completed requirements for her undergraduate degree at 
     RISD in the late 1950s.
       In 1966, she married Henry X. ``Hy'' Salzberger, a recently 
     retired Texas department store executive, and moved to 
     Dallas. She helped her husband in the two organizations he 
     founded, Dallas Taping for the Blind and a local radio 
     station for the blind. She also lectured on art therapy at 
     hospitals and at the University of North Texas, and 
     supervised therapists-in-training.
       When Mrs. Salzberger's husband died in 1994, she returned 
     to Chevy Chase to be closer to family and friends. She also 
     resumed painting.
       Her son, Nelson W. Polsby, died in 2007.
       Survivors include two sons, Allen I. Polsby of Bethesda and 
     Daniel D. Polsby of Fairfax County; eight grandchildren; and 
     two great-grandchildren.

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