Dr. Anne W. Alonso, at 73; founded psychotherapy center at Mass. General, was educator
Just as a successful psychotherapist should have a good poker face, a good poker player should be able to size up those across the table with psychiatric acuity. Dr. Anne W. Alonso was accomplished in both roles.
A past president of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, she was widely admired for her ability to lead group sessions, and she reveled in teaching the craft of talk therapy to aspiring practitioners.
When it came to poker, though, Dr. Alonso was more reticent about sharing her secrets.
"Nobody could beat my mother at cards," said her daughter Marjie of Somerville. "It was pointless; Mom just won. That's what she did when she played cards. And she guarded it well. She didn't teach us how to win. That's not one of the things she handed down."
Dr. Alonso, who founded the Center for Psychoanalytic Studies at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she had worked since 1978, died at the hospital on Aug. 22 of complications from surgery. She was 73 and had lived in Cambridge.
"Through the good times and the bad, the hard times and the easy, she had immense, immense compassion for her patients," said Scott Rutan, a psychologist who was a colleague and friend for many years. "The more disturbed, the more she cared for them and understood them. She understood that anybody who walked into her office had earned their heartache honestly."
Her compassion touched hundreds of patients over the past three decades, colleagues said, but the impact of Dr. Alonso's career reaches far beyond Boston.
"As a teacher, she taught so many people who became teachers," said Dr. Aaron Lazare, chancellor and dean emeritus of University of Massachusetts Medical School. "A lot of her legacy is there. She taught the teachers who teach everyone now."
For those who studied with her, epiphanies abounded, said Dr. John B. Herman, associate chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General.
"She would make the obscure obvious," said Herman, who studied with Dr. Alonso years ago.
Born in Manchester, N.H., Anne Abokalil was the only child of Lebanese immigrants.
"She didn't start with a sense of family," her daughter said. "Her mother died when she was 1, so she really made a family for herself everywhere she went, a large and extended one."
Dr. Alonso's father opened a restaurant, and at 12 she began accompanying him to the market, where she learned to choose the best foods and meats.
After graduating from Emmanuel College in 1956, she met Ramon Alonso, whom she married in 1958.
"In many ways, she was a force of nature," he said.
They raised two daughters, and in 1969 she received a master's in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She began working at Massachusetts General through an internship and fellowship, and started teaching at Tufts Medical School before receiving a doctorate in clinical psychology in 1980 from Fielding Graduate University.
The following year she began teaching at Harvard Medical School, where she rose to clinical professor of psychology. She was also professor emeritus at Fielding, where she created the Alonso Center for Psychodynamic Studies.
"From the beginning she's been recognized as perhaps one of the most influential and inspirational teachers and supervisors," said Dr. Jerry Rosenbaum, chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General.
"She had an extraordinary mixture of wisdom and common sense. She could speak in classical professional language, but knew when and where to rely on her vast experience. And she was very kind.
"She was devoted to her trainees. She loved them, they loved her back."
Among Dr. Alonso's many honors were the Clifford Barger Award for Excellence in Mentoring from Harvard Medical School and being named Woman of the Year by the American Group Psychotherapy Association, both in 2001.
"Anne is a mythical figure in a lot of ways," Rutan said. "When she entered a room, you knew it. And she had a wicked sense of humor - including at herself."
Dr. Alonso's presence went beyond her professional abilities, though often that would have been enough, colleagues said.
Owing in part to her early introduction to choosing good food, she was a gifted cook who specialized in Middle Eastern dishes. As part of her teaching, she often invited students and professors to dine together.
"They were almost like salons for psychotherapy that would draw faculty and trainees to her home in Cambridge," Rosenbaum said.
"She had the capacity to both listen empathetically and to teach in a way that never made the trainee feel awkward or stupid, but instead brought out the best in people."
At the poker table, however, or in the old Boston Garden where she had season tickets for the Celtics during the Larry Bird era, "she was like one of the boys," Lazare said with a laugh. "There was nothing precious about her."
She could be just as down to earth with a challenging patient.
"One time she was working with the acute psychiatric service at Mass. General and this poor woman came in saying she was hearing five voices," Dr. Alonso's husband said.
"The woman said her voices were telling her to do this and to do that. So Anne, without missing a beat, said, 'Would you mind asking your voices to stand outside while we talk?' And the woman did. And they talked."
Dr. Alonso spoke many languages, metaphorically and literally. She grew up speaking Arabic at home and French in a Catholic girls' school, and she picked up English. She also learned Spanish and had planned to study Italian in advance of a trip to Italy.
"If there was a way to communicate, she wanted to," her daughter said. "She wasn't going to be left out, and she wanted to be a part of wherever she went."
And in recent years Dr. Alonso taught her grandsons the language of chance.
"She loved to play poker with my kids," her daughter said. "It's the kind of thing where you leave your kids with your parents and when you come back later your 4-year-old son is going, 'I've got a full boat!' One of our family expressions is 'Shut up and deal.' It's hard to even picture her without a deck of cards near."
Until becoming ill a couple of months ago, Dr. Alonso was still lecturing and teaching. She had no plans to stop.
"She loved her work," Rutan said, adding that when the subject of retirement came up, "she said, 'You retire to do something you enjoy, and we're already doing that.' "
In addition to her husband and daughter Marjie, Dr. Alonso leaves another daughter, Sarah of Somerville; two grandsons; and a granddaughter.
A memorial service will be held Sept. 29 at 2 p.m. in Memorial Church at Harvard University.
Burial will be private. 