“In the psychoanalytic world, there has been this tendency to assume that everything is psychodynamic,” he added, noting that some doctors reflexively blamed mothers for their children’s behavior.
But dr. Hobson tempered his views in his later years.
“He came to believe that psychoanalysis could be useful in treating mental disorders,” said Dr. Lydic, “but he did not believe in rigid symbolism when interpreting dreams.”
For the most part, Dr. Hobson still, as the saying goes, a cigar is just a cigar.
John Allan Hobson was born on June 3, 1933 in Hartford, Conn. His mother Ann (Cotter) Hobson was a housewife. His father, John Robert Hobson, was a lawyer.
John attended Loomis School, now the Loomis Chaffee School, in Windsor, Connecticut, where he graduated in 1951. He spent a year abroad, then returned to study at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he majored in English and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1959.
In 1956 he married Joan Harlowe; they divorced in 1992. In the mid-1990s he married Dr. Rosalia Silvestri, and she outlives him.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Dr. Hobson’s four sons, Ian, Christopher, Andrew, and Matthew; his brother Bruce; and four grandchildren.
After studying medicine, Dr. Hobson did a two year internship at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. Instead of military service, he served in the Public Health Service of the National Institutes of Health.
