Dr. Nathan Max Simon

Dr. Nathan Max Simon, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, professor, and a recognized public health researcher, died on Tuesday, July 4, 2023, at the age of 97.

Dr. Simon treated patients during a career that spanned more than 60 years. He worked at and was affiliated with the Barnes-Jewish Hospital of St. Louis for 35 years, rising to the position of Clinical Director of the Department of Psychiatry. He entered into private practice, based at the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute. He proudly retained his Missouri license to practice medicine until 2022.

Dr. Simon was a long-time educator in St. Louis medical schools. He was the Clinical Professor of Psychiatry (Emeritus) at St. Louis University Medical School for more than twenty years. He also was an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry (Emeritus) at Washington University School of Medicine for more than 20 years. At the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute, he was a Training and Supervisory Analyst on the faculty where he taught for more than 30 years.

In addition to his extensive private practice and teaching careers, Dr. Simon led or contributed to numerous ground-breaking studies in public health, including on abortion, heart attack, smoking and stress on ICU nurses. At a time when abortion was criminalized throughout much of the United States, Dr Simon co-authored a controlled study that found that healthy women who had abortions did not develop serious psychiatric illness afterward, a finding contrary to the prevalent medical literature popular opinion. He led a nationwide, multi-year study of 12,000 men at high risk for heart attack. He also helped lead a study on stress in Intensive Care Unit nurses, the results of which were published in a 1980 book on the subject that he edited.

Dr. Simon also was active in many local and national organizations, including the ACLU, the St. Louis Heart Association, the Jewish Children's Home of St. Louis, and the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Dr. Simon was born in Wilmington, Delaware on March 27, 1926, to Philip and Jennie Simon, who were grocers. He attended the University of Delaware before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1943 at 17. He served as an Infantry instructor and the Army sent him to learn Chinese at Yale University. Afterwards, he transferred to the Army's Counter-Intelligence Service. Following his honorable discharge as a Sergeant, he entered Yale University and graduated in 1949 with a Bachelor of Science. In 1950, he earned a Master of Public Health, also from Yale University. He then attended the Washington University Medical School, graduating in 1955. After medical school, he interned at the Jewish Hospital of St. Louis and was a resident in psychiatry at Yale University for three successive years. Dr. Simon received his psychoanalytic training at the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Chicago.

Dr. Simon lived in St. Louis, Missouri for over 60 years and moved to Novi, Michigan in 2021. He was an avid hiker, backpacker, bicyclist, fly fisherman and a published poet and memoirist. He travelled extensively throughout the world and loved spending time with his eight grandchildren.

He is survived by Barbara Simon, his beautiful wife of 71 years; his four sons and their spouses, Benjamin (Edie Brashares), Charles (Melissa), Philip (Christy Hoffman), and David (Ann); his loving sister Naomi Sales; and eight grandchildren, Charles, Ellie, Jake, Jenna, Jeremy, Julia, Katie, and Sophia. Arrangements by The Dorfman Chapel or visit www.thedorfmanchapel.com