ABSTRACT
Celestine Louise Smith (1903–1975) was the first Black Jungian psychoanalyst, certified in 1964. She received her EdD degree in 1952 from Columbia University Teachers College. This chapter discusses Smith's doctoral dissertation, An Exploration of Individual Need for Marriage and Family Life Education Among Urban Family Members (1952). This was a culmination of her qualitative research that aimed to discover individual needs and problems regarding marriage and family life education through single structured interviews with 75 adult participants in the Black community of New York City's borough of Manhattan. Despite her recognition of the insufficiencies of her chosen methods for gathering and analyzing data, the information gained by her assessments proved helpful to her participants and the communities in which they live. The research fostered her 40-year career as a YWCA national secretary and human relations specialist, her emphasis as Jungian psychoanalyst, and as an advocate for social justice around the world.
