Sy Coopersmith, Psychoanalyst
Sy Coopersmith, a practicing Manhattan psychoanalyst for nearly a half-century and the owner of an East Hampton house for much of that time, died at his home in Great Neck on Nov. 6, at the age of 84. A survivor of liver cancer, he had suffered a number of health challenges in recent years, including a mini-stroke in May, said his wife, Valerie Pinhas. Death was attributed to respiratory failure.
Mr. Coopersmith, who held a doctorate, was among those who spearheaded the licensing of psychoanalysis as an independent profession in the State of New York. For almost 20 years he lobbied the state, firm in his belief that psychoanalysis needed to stand on its own, and finally met success three years ago.
As a psychoanalyst, he was known for “bringing divergent groups of people together,” his wife said. “He was so compelling as a person.”
He was born in Boston on June 19, 1931, to Leon Coopersmith and the former Bella Winokur, and graduated from the Boston Latin School in 1949 and from Bates College in 1953. Drafted, he served in the Army as a private first class from September 1956 to June 1958, during which time he made films, mainly on sexually transmitted diseases.
He earned a master’s degree from the New School for Social Research in 1965, and took his Ph.D. in 1984 from Columbia University Teachers College.
Mr. Coopersmith, who first worked as an electrical heating engineer, was working on the heating systems at Rockefeller Center and the World Trade Center when he completed his training at the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis. Later he served on its faculty as a senior clinical supervisor, and would go on to serve several terms as its president. A memorial service will be held at the association, at 40 West 13th Street in Manhattan, on Jan. 10 from 1 to 3 p.m.
He discovered East Hampton in the late ’60s and “just loved it,” his wife said. He bought property and built a house on Two Holes of Water Road in 1975; it became something of a share house for a time. Lawyers, doctors, and other professionals rented rooms for the summer, and, said his wife, “it was the house to be at if you were in your 30s and 40s.” Many a marriage was made there, she recalled, and the house is still a topic of dinner-party talk.
Mr. Coopersmith himself did not marry until he was 57. He met his wife, a psychoanalyst and professor emerita at Nassau Community College, in a group studying borderline personality disorder. They were married on June 5, 1988, at Wings Point in East Hampton. The New York Times interviewed Mr. Coopersmith in 1990 for a story on older fathers; he was 59 when their daughter was born.
Here in East Hampton on weekends and in the summer, he played tennis at East Hampton Indoor Tennis and the East Hampton Racquet Club. In Manhattan, he was the longtime president of his co-op board at 257 Central Park West, where he saw patients, and president also of the University Gardens Property Owners Association of Great Neck. He served on the editorial board of the Psychoanalytic Review and published many papers in peer-reviewed journals.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Andie Coopersmith of Manhattan, he leaves a sister, Ruth Davis of Philadelphia, and three nephews.
Mr. Coopersmith was cremated. His ashes were buried on Nov. 27 at the Independent Jewish Cemetery in Sag Harbor. Donations in his memory may be directed to the Sy Coopersmith Memorial Lecture Series, an annual series established in his honor by the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis.