Newsweek, March 2025
Kitty Dukakis, wife of former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, died Friday night at age 88, surrounded by family. Her son, John Dukakis, confirmed her passing to the Associated Press on Saturday. Dukakis transformed her personal struggles with addiction and depression into powerful advocacy, breaking ground on destigmatizing mental health treatments.
Her openness about her challenges, including electroconvulsive therapy for depression, created space for public discussions about mental health when such conversations were rare. Kitty met her future husband while attending high school in Brookline, Massachusetts. They married in 1963. Following her husband’s 1988 presidential campaign, she publicly addressed her battles with addiction and mental health. In 2006, she authored Shock, crediting electroconvulsive therapy that she received in 2001 for relieving the depression she had suffered for years.
