Maria Lymberis, M.D., Honored With Berson Senior Psychiatrist Award

Maria Lymberis, M.D., a past member of the APA Assembly and Board of Trustees and a past chair of the Southern California Psychiatric Society’s Ethics Committee, received the 2023 Harold E. Berson Senior Psychiatrist Award from Senior Psychiatrists Inc.

The award, which includes a plaque and a $1,000 honorarium, was presented to Lymberis at APA’s 2023 Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The Berson Award acknowledges a senior member of APA who has made a significant contribution to psychiatry. The award is made possible through a grant from the estate of Harold E. Berson, M.D., and is presented annually by the APA Foundation.

Lymberis was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Geffen UCLA School of Medicine, honorary, and a graduate psychoanalyst of the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute, where she taught for over 20 years as a senior faculty member. She was a pioneer in psychiatric ethics and in the 1980s participated in the California Senate Task Force on Psychotherapist Patient Sexual Misconduct. In 1987 she helped draft the California Consumer Information Bulletin titled “Therapy Never Involves Sex.” Later she was chair of the APA Ethics Subcommittee on the Education of Psychiatrists on Ethical Issues.

Lymberis was born in Greece and educated at Rutgers University. She graduated from the University of Southern California School of Medicine in 1964 and completed her psychiatric residency at the then Albert Einstein Bronx Municipal Hospital in New York City in 1968. She completed a child and adolescent psychiatric fellowship at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute in 1970.

She is the founder of two nonprofit organizations: the Psychiatric Education and Research Foundation, formed in 1990, and the Hellenic American Psychiatric Association, formed in 1999.

Senior Psychiatrists, founded in 2012, is an outgrowth of the APA “Lifers” organization. Prior to 2012, the organization was managed by the APA Foundation. Today, the Senior Psychiatrists is one of APA’s allied organizations with representation in the APA Assembly.

Membership in the Senior Psychiatrists is open to any APA member who is a life member, life fellow, or life distinguished fellow. There are approximately 8,000 APA members who have achieved life status, representing about 20% of the APA membership.

Past recipients of the Berson Award include former APA Medical Director James Scully, M.D.; past APA presidents Herbert Pardes, M.D., Steven Sharfstein, M.D., Nada Stotland, M.D., M.P.H., and Dilip Jeste, M.D.; and past APA trustee Roger Peele, M.D. ■