Rocco L. Motto, 89; work helped establish field of child psychiatry

Rocco L. Motto, a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who was the medical director of the Reiss-Davis Child Study Center in Los Angeles for more than 20 years, died Oct. 30. He was 89.

The cause was leukemia, his daughter, Marilyn Motto Henkelman, told The Times.

Motto’s early years at Reiss-Davis, starting in 1953, coincided with “the golden years for psychoanalysis,” said Dr. Heiman Van Dam, a longtime colleague. At that time, adults who were in psychoanalysis wanted the same treatment available for their children, Van Dam recalled. Interest in the field led to a training program in child psychiatry and psychoanalysis at Reiss-Davis, he said.

The center, now part of Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services, offers a range of psychotherapy services to children, adolescents and young adults.

Motto, who was born Sept. 14, 1917, first considered working with young people when he was a boy in his hometown of Cleveland. He spent a lot of his free time at a boys club in his community and later worked at a summer camp for children.

“He realized the sooner you reach someone young who has a problem, the better chance they have in their adult life,” Verna Houck Motto said this week about her husband’s career choice.

Motto graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1939 and went on to medical school at Case Western Reserve University, graduating in 1942. He joined the U.S. Army Air Forces and was a flight surgeon based at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois during World War II.

He met and married his wife in Ohio. After military service, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where Motto did his training in psychiatry at the Veterans Administration hospital. The couple had two children. Motto is survived by a sister and four grandchildren as well as his wife and children.

In the early 1970s, Motto helped to found the Graduate Center for Child Development and Psychotherapy in Los Angeles, which offers advanced degrees in child psychology. He later became dean emeritus.

When Motto left Reiss-Davis in the mid-1970s, he traveled in Asia and the South Pacific, lecturing about his field at schools, children’s hospitals and clinics.

In recent years he and his wife made philanthropic contributions to several organizations in Ohio, including Camp Ho Mita Koda (which means “welcome my friend” in the Sioux language) for children with diabetes, the school of social work at Case Western Reserve and the Cleveland Institute of Art, where Motto and his wife funded a $1-million endowed chair earlier this month.

A memorial service for Motto is planned for 2 p.m., Dec. 21 at Westwood United Methodist Church, 10497 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles.

Contributions in his name can be made to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Donor Services, P.O. Box 4072, Pittsfield, MA 01202.

mary.rourke@latimes.com