Married to Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, she became a proponent of electroshock therapy after unsuccessful treatments for alcoholism and depression.
Kitty Dukakis, an activist first lady and humanitarian, who overcame alcoholism and depression with the help of electroconvulsive therapy, then became a proponent of the treatment with her husband, Michael S. Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor and the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, died on Friday night at her home in Brookline, Mass. She was 88.
Her son, John, told the news media that the cause was complications of dementia.
Mrs. Dukakis was a longtime activist on behalf of underdogs and people who struggled. Among the subjects most important to her was continuing education on the Holocaust. She was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 to the first President’s Commission on the Holocaust, which sought to create a national memorial and museum; when that panel was replaced a decade later by the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, she was appointed to the council by President George H.W. Bush.
“Perhaps in the entire history of civilization, the Holocaust was the most important object lesson in man’s inhumanity to man,” she told the National Governors Association in 1983.
Few political wives have been as forthright as Mrs. Dukakis in sharing the intimate details of their struggles with addiction and depression. She wrote two books that revealed in painful detail her early dependence on diet pills, how alcoholism later took over her life and how she turned, at age 64, to electroshock therapy to treat the crippling depression that she said had long been masked by her drinking.
Her successful electroshock treatment led her and her husband to publicly advocate for the effectiveness of the procedure, and even to hold support groups at their home.
But for most of her time in the spotlight, she carefully concealed her drinking and her depression.
She worked as a modern dance teacher and immersed herself in numerous causes as her husband pursued his political career. Passionately committed to helping the underdog, she devoted herself to projects involving the homeless, refugees, AIDS and the Holocaust.