Seymour Perlin

With great sadness, we announce the death of Seymour Perlin, M.D. of Bethesda, Maryland. Surrounded by his loving family, he died November 20, 2025, age 100. Sy was a devoted and caring husband, father, grandfather and friend.
Dr. Perlin, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the George Washington University, was a leading academic psychiatrist recognized for his pioneering work in the field of suicidology. He made significant contributions to the scientific literature in the areas of suicidology, aging, community mental health, and medical ethics. Dr. Perlin was the author of more than fifty scholarly publications as well as two definitive anthology textbooks, the Handbook for the Study of Suicide and Ethical Issues in Death and Dying (co-editor).
Born in Passaic, NJ on September 27, 1925, Dr. Perlin was a summa cum laude graduate and Phi Beta Kappa recipient from Princeton University (Class of 1947). While at Princeton, he particularly enjoyed his assignment to escort Albert Einstein to University seminars. Dr. Perlin received his medical degree in 1950 from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. After an internship at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor, MI (1951-1952), he completed his Columbia University psychiatry residency at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in 1954 and his psychoanalytic training at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute later that year.
Dr. Perlin served as Chief of the Section on Psychiatry in the Laboratory of Clinical Science at the National Institute of Mental Health of the NIH (1955-1959). His research and scholarship addressed the neurophysiology of schizophrenia, aging, and LSD. Following his time at the NIH, he completed a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California (1958-1959). Afterwards, he founded and led the Division of Psychiatry at Montefiore Hospital in New York (1960-1963), where he developed and implemented an innovative model for bringing mental health care to the community.
Dr. Perlin's academic career took him to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where he attained the rank of Professor of Psychiatry and served as the Director of Clinical Care and Training at the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic (1964-1972). There, he established the first postgraduate fellowship program in the U.S. for the study of suicide. In 1972, he received the Joseph P. Kennedy Fellowship in Medicine and Ethics, and he was appointed as Senior Research Scholar at the Kennedy Institute for Bioethics at Georgetown University (1974-1977).
Dr. Perlin was a founder of the American Association of Suicidology (1968), serving as its second President (1969). He received Columbia University's Silver Bicentennial Medallion for Achievement in Psychiatry (1967), and later the prestigious Louis I. Dublin Award for outstanding service and contribution to the field of suicide prevention (1978).
Dr. Perlin joined the GWU School of Medicine and Health Sciences clinical faculty in 1974 and in 1977 became a member of the full-time faculty as Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of Psychiatry Residency Training, a position he held until 1993. During that time, he developed and led a nationally recognized residency program. He mentored numerous psychiatry trainees, many of whom went on to be leaders in the field. An annual lecture in suicidology was endowed in his name at the GWU School of Medicine and Health Sciences Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health; it has featured leading scholars, researchers, clinicians, and policymakers in the field since its inception in 1993. Recognizing Dr. Perlin as a distinguished clinician, scholar, teacher, colleague, advocate, and expert in a range of topics in psychiatry and medicine, GWU granted him the status of professor emeritus in 1996 and established the Seymour and Ruth Perlin Professorship in Psychiatry and Behavioral Health in 2022.
He married his great love, Ruth Rudolph, in August 1958, and they enjoyed a long, loving, and full marriage focused on family, friends, and the arts. An avid gardener, he spent many hours nurturing the flowers and plants in his patio garden. He and Ruth enjoyed traveling the world, including annual stays in Santa Fe and Longboat Key. They especially loved visiting their children, grandchildren, and their growing family.
Dr. Perlin is survived by Ruth Rudolph Perlin, his loving wife of 67 years, and by three sons and daughters-in-law: Jonathan and Donna, Steven and Wendy, and Jeremy and Susan. He took great joy in family and friends. Seven grandchildren and their spouses also survive him: Ben, Sarah (Benjamin), Allison (Andy), Connor (Lucija), Isabel, Eli, and Gabe.
A memorial service will be held at Washington Hebrew Congregation on Monday, November 24, 2025, at 1:30 p.m., followed by a reception. In lieu of flowers, contributions in his honor may be made to the Seymour Perlin, M.D. Lectureship in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, c/o The George Washington University, PO Box 98131, Washington, DC 20090-8131 or directly through this online link https://go.gwu.edu/perlinlecture. Services entrusted to Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.