Peggy Bennion Papp, an internationally renowned family therapist, and a beloved mother, sister, aunt and great aunt, passed away peacefully in New York City on November 13, 2021. She was 98 years old.
Peggy was born on February 20, 1923 in Salt Lake City, Utah to Heber Bennion Jr. and Vera Weiler Bennion. Her father was a rancher and politician, elected Utah Secretary of State for two terms. Much of her early years were spent at her parents’ ranch in Manila Utah, where she rode horses, roped calves and gained physical stamina and a deep love of the outdoors.
At the University of Utah, Peggy was attracted to the theater and acted in many plays. She wrote feature articles for the Salt Lake Tribune and later moved to Hollywood to write for movie magazines. She met Burt Lancaster, Rex Harrison, Peter Lawford, and many other stars of the day.
Wanting to be a star rather than write about them, she went to New York to attend the Academy of Dramatic Arts. Eventually she found work as an actor with a touring version of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” She met legendary theater producer Joe Papp on the tour and they married upon their return to New York in 1951.
Peggy and Joe believed that the theater should be available to all people, not just to those with money and privilege. Peggy was instrumental in developing Joe’s ambitious ideas for theater in New York and was involved in fundraising and support for his many groundbreaking efforts, including the establishment of the New York Shakespeare Festival and The Public Theater. She acted in some of the first plays that were produced for the Festival.
In the 1960s, wanting to have a more meaningful career, Peggy gave up acting to become a therapist. She earned a master’s degree in Social Work at Hunter College and began working at the Ackerman Institute for the Family in New York, where she worked for more than 50 years.
Peggy was a pioneer in family therapy who developed many innovative techniques based on artistic metaphors, including family sculpting, that became popular in the field and are still widely used. She was ahead of her time in focusing on the role of gender in family therapy, specifically the ways that gender socialization disadvantages women, and her feminist influence enabled a further focus on social class and race in the field. She gave workshops in 30 countries, in every state in the U.S., and wrote several books that remain in the canon of family therapy to this day. Peggy’s therapy practice was her life, and she continued to work at the Ackerman Institute and in private practice well into her 90s.
Peggy will be remembered as an energetic, courageous, adventurous, thoughtful, generous person who cherished her humble Western upbringing, while also deeply adoring her adopted home of New York City and its thriving theater, art, and music scenes. She was a person of the absolute highest integrity and intellect who was never afraid of speaking her mind but was also a warm, supporting presence in the lives of her family and clients.
Peggy was preceded in death by her ex-husband Joseph Papp, her son Anthony Papp, her brother Weiler Bennion, and her sisters Barbalyn Bennion Curry and Virginia Bennion Buchanan. She is survived by her daughter Miranda Papp Adani.