The Life and Times of Franz Alexander: From Budapest To California

Ilonka Venier Alexander is a clinical social worker and psychotherapist with 30 years' experience in the field of mental health. She had the opportunity to testify before the United States Congress in the early days of the HIV epidemic about its impact on Boston area veterans. For years, her area of specialization was adults with a severe and persistent mental illness. Later in her career, she helped to write the mental health standards for children and adolescents in Nova Scotia, at the time the only such standards in Canada. She received her Masters of Social Work degree from the University of Southern California and is the granddaughter of Dr Franz Alexander, founder of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.