[1][2] W. Maxwell Cowan, Donald H. Harter, and Eric R. Kandel cited "the seminal roles played by David McKenzie Rioch, Francis O. Schmitt, and ... Stephen W. Kuffler in creating neuroscience as we now know it.
In 1943, during World War II, he became director of research at the Chestnut Lodge psychiatric hospital in Rockville, Maryland, jointly with leading the Washington School of Psychiatry, positions he held until 1951.
[6][12][13][14] During his tenure, Rioch particularly studied the relationship between stress and major depressive disorder, and he emphasized the use of basic anatomical and physiological methods in informing psychiatric research on human behavior.
[8] His clinical psychiatric interests were heavily influenced by Harry Stack Sullivan, and during the Korean War, he personally observed the stress experienced by combat troops during the Battle of Pork Chop Hill.
[11][17] In the 1960s, they lived in the suburb of Somerset, Maryland, sometimes referred to jokingly as the "Freudian Village" or "Little Vienna" due to the high number of psychiatrists in the neighborhood.