Born on Jan. 19, 1917, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Sobel graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1937 and received his MD degree from New York University Medical School in 1941. He was commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant in the US Army Medical Corps . He was a Battalion Surgeon in the 135th Infantry and later was appointed as the very first Division Psychiatrist in the US Army.

 

After WWII, Dr. Sobel completed his psychiatric training and was Chief Resident in Psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital in New York. He became one of the pioneers of family therapy, and with Nate Ackerman co-authored the first article ever written on family therapy called “Family Diagnosis: An Approach to the Pre-School Child.”

Desiring to teach, he left his private practice and became an associate professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1964 he joined the faculty of Dartmouth Medical School, where he became Chairman of the Department of Child Psychiatry.

 

Dr. Sobel was an ardent craftsman, and upon his retirement from psychiatry, he pursued his long-standing interest in blacksmithing and metal sculpture in a studio he built near his house in Etna, New Hampshire. As part of the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen he honed his craft with well known artists at workshops thought New England.

 

The enormous body of work he created ranged from large garden sculpture to small delicate jewelry in his later years. His psychiatric background played an infuencial role in much of his work. Sobel's work in forged iron and bronze has been exhibited in galleries and museums in the US and abroad. His last major metal sculpture is a wrought iron and bronze screen in which are displayed mythological themes from the Renaissance. It is in the permanent exhibits of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London.