Category: Mental Health History

On This Day … 18 November [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1924 – Anna Elisabeth (Lise) Østergaard, Danish psychologist and politician (d. 1996).

Anna Elisabeth (Lise) Ostergaard

Anna Elisabeth “Lise” Østergaard (18 November 1924 to 19 March 1996) was a Danish psychologist and a politician in the social-democratic party. Under Anker Jørgensen’s leadership, she was Minister without Portfolio (1977-1980) and Minister of Culture (February 1980 to September 1982). As a psychologist, she was head of psychology in Copenhagen’s Rigshospitalet (1958) as well as the first woman to become professor of clinical psychology at Copenhagen University (1963), a position she resumed after her political career ended in the mid-1980s.

On This Day … 17 November [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1896 – Lev Vygotsky, Belarusian-Russian psychologist and philosopher (d. 1934).

People (Deaths)

  • 2014 – Patrick Suppes, American psychologist and philosopher (b. 1922).

Lev Vygotsky

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (Russian: Лев Семёнович Выго́тский; Belarusian: Леў Сямёнавіч Выго́цкі; 17 November 1896 to 11 June 1934) was a Soviet psychologist, known for his work on psychological development in children. He published on a diverse range of subjects, and from multiple views as his perspective changed over the years. Among his students was Alexander Luria and Kharkiv school of psychology.

He is known for his concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD): the distance between what a student (apprentice, new employee, etc.) can do on their own, and what they can accomplish with the support of someone more knowledgeable about the activity. Vygotsky saw the ZPD as a measure of skills that are in the process of maturing, as supplement to measures of development that only look at a learner’s independent ability.

Also influential are his works on the relationship between language and thought, the development of language, and a general theory of development through actions and relationships in a socio-cultural environment. This can be found in many of his essays.

Patrick Suppes

Patrick Colonel Suppes (17 March 1922 to 17 November 2014) was an American philosopher who made significant contributions to philosophy of science, the theory of measurement, the foundations of quantum mechanics, decision theory, psychology and educational technology. He was the Lucie Stern Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Stanford University and until January 2010 was the Director of the Education Program for Gifted Youth also at Stanford.

On This Day … 16 November [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1944 – Oliver Braddick, English psychologist and academic (d. 2022).

Oliver Braddick

Oliver John Braddick, FBA, FMedSci (16 November 1944 to 17 January 2022) was a British developmental psychologist who researched infant visual perception. He frequently collaborated with his wife Janette Atkinson.

Braddick was Emeritus Professor of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University from 2011 to 2022. Prior to that, from 2001 to 2011 he was professor and head of the Department of Experimental Psychology.

Braddick gained a BA (1965) and PhD (1968) in Experimental Psychology at Trinity College, Cambridge. Between 1968 and 1969 he was a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Lorrin Riggs, Brown University, USA. In 1969 he returned to Cambridge as a University Demonstrator; later he became a lecturer and then reader. By 1976, Braddick was an active member of the Cambridge Visual Development Unit, along with Janette Atkinson, his wife. The unit carried out pioneering research on the development of visual cortical function in infancy and in early visual screening. He also advanced understanding of binocular processes of both infants and adults.

In 1993, Braddick moved to University College London, together with Janette Atkinson, as professors of Psychology. He became head of the Psychology department in 1998. In 2001, he was elected fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, was appointed Head of Psychology at the University of Oxford, and became a Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. In July 2012, Braddick was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy, for his contributions in the field of visual perception and its development in early childhood. Braddick was also a member of the Visual Development Unit at the University College of London and University of Oxford, a unit that specialises in child visual perception.

Braddick was a member of the editorial board for Current Biology. He died on 17 January 2022, at the age of 77.

On This Day … 15 November [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1917 – Émile Durkheim, French sociologist, psychologist, and philosopher (b. 1858).

Emile Durkheim

David Émile Durkheim (15 April 1858 to 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, along with both Karl Marx and Max Weber.

Much of Durkheim’s work was concerned with how societies can maintain their integrity and coherence in modernity, an era in which traditional social and religious ties are much less universal, and in which new social institutions have come into being. Durkheim’s conception of the scientific study of society laid the groundwork for modern sociology, and he used such scientific tools as statistics, surveys, and historical observation in his analysis of suicides in Catholic and Protestant groups. His first major sociological work was De la division du travail social (1893; The Division of Labour in Society), followed in 1895 by Les Règles de la méthode sociologique (The Rules of Sociological Method), the same year in which Durkheim set up the first European department of sociology and became France’s first professor of sociology. Durkheim’s seminal monograph, Le Suicide (1897), a study of suicide rates in Catholic and Protestant populations, especially pioneered modern social research, serving to distinguish social science from psychology and political philosophy. The following year, in 1898, he established the journal L’Année Sociologique. Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (1912; The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life) presented a theory of religion, comparing the social and cultural lives of aboriginal and modern societies.

Durkheim was deeply preoccupied with the acceptance of sociology as a legitimate science. He refined the positivism originally set forth by Auguste Comte, promoting what could be considered as a form of epistemological realism, as well as the use of the hypothetico-deductive model in social science. For Durkheim, sociology was the science of institutions, understanding the term in its broader meaning as the “beliefs and modes of behaviour instituted by the collectivity,” with its aim being to discover structural social facts. As such, Durkheim was a major proponent of structural functionalism, a foundational perspective in both sociology and anthropology. In his view, social science should be purely holistic in the sense that sociology should study phenomena attributed to society at large, rather than being limited to the study of specific actions of individuals.

He remained a dominant force in French intellectual life until his death in 1917, presenting numerous lectures and published works on a variety of topics, including the sociology of knowledge, morality, social stratification, religion, law, education, and deviance. Some terms that he coined, such as “collective consciousness”, are now also used by laypeople.

On This Day … 14 November [2022]

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People (Deaths)

  • 2008 – Robert E. Valett, American psychologist, teacher, and author (b. 1927).

Robert E. Valett

Robert E. Valett (22 November 1927 to 14 November 2008) was an American psychology professor who wrote more than 20 books primarily focused on educational psychology.

He earned the distinguished psychologist award from the San Joaquin Psychological Association and was a president of the California Association of School Psychologists.

On This Day … 12 November [2022]

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People (Deaths)

  • 2012 – Daniel Stern, American psychologist and theorist (b. 1934).

Daniel Stern

Daniel N. Stern (16 August 1934 to 12 November 2012) was a prominent American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst, specialising in infant development, on which he had written a number of books – most notably The Interpersonal World of the Infant (1985).

Stern’s 1985 and 1995 research and conceptualisation created a bridge between psychoanalysis and research-based developmental models.

On This Day … 11 November [2022]

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People (Deaths)

  • 2002 – Frances Ames, South African neurologist, psychiatrist, and human rights activist (b. 1920).

Frances Ames

Frances Rix Ames (20 April 1920 to 11 November 2002) was a South African neurologist, psychiatrist, and human rights activist, best known for leading the medical ethics inquiry into the death of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who died from medical neglect after being tortured in police custody. When the South African Medical and Dental Council (SAMDC) declined to discipline the chief district surgeon and his assistant who treated Biko, Ames and a group of five academics and physicians raised funds and fought an eight-year legal battle against the medical establishment. Ames risked her personal safety and academic career in her pursuit of justice, taking the dispute to the South African Supreme Court, where she eventually won the case in 1985.

Born in Pretoria and raised in poverty in Cape Town, Ames became the first woman to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Cape Town in 1964. Ames studied the effects of cannabis on the brain and published several articles on the subject. Seeing the therapeutic benefits of cannabis on patients in her own hospital, she became an early proponent of legalization for medicinal use. She headed the neurology department at Groote Schuur Hospital before retiring in 1985, but continued to lecture at Valkenberg and Alexandra Hospital. After apartheid was dismantled in 1994, Ames testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission about her work on the “Biko doctors” medical ethics inquiry. In 1999, Nelson Mandela awarded Ames the Star of South Africa, the country’s highest civilian award, in recognition of her work on behalf of human rights.

On This Day … 09 November [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1939 – Paul Cameron, American psychologist and academic.
  • 2002 – William Schutz, American psychologist and academic (b. 1925).

Paul Cameron

Paul Drummond Cameron (born 09 November 1939) is an American psychologist. Cameron has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-gay extremist. While employed at various institutions, including the University of Nebraska, he conducted research on passive smoking, but he is best known today for his claims about homosexuality. After a successful 1982 campaign against a gay rights proposal in Lincoln, Nebraska, he established the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality (ISIS), now known as the Family Research Institute (FRI). As FRI’s chairman, Cameron has written contentious papers asserting unproven associations between homosexuality and the perpetration of child sexual abuse and reduced life expectancy. These have been heavily criticised and frequently discredited by others in the field.

In 1983, the American Psychological Association expelled Cameron for non-cooperation with an ethics investigation. Position statements issued by the American Sociological Association, Canadian Psychological Association, and the Nebraska Psychological Association accuse Cameron of misrepresenting social science research.

William Schutz

William Schutz (19 December 1925 to 09 November 2002) was an American psychologist.

In 1958, Schutz introduced a theory of interpersonal relations he called Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation (FIRO). According to the theory three dimensions of interpersonal relations were deemed to be necessary and sufficient to explain most human interaction: Inclusion, Control and Affection. These dimensions have been used to assess group dynamics.

Schutz also created FIRO-B, a measurement instrument with scales that assess the behavioural aspects of the three dimensions. His advancement of FIRO Theory beyond the FIRO-B tool was most obvious in the change of the “Affection” scale to the “Openness” scale in the “FIRO Element-B”. This change highlighted his newer theory that behaviour comes from feelings (“FIRO Element-F”) and the self-concept (“FIRO Element-S”). “Underlying the behavior of openness is the feeling of being likable or unlikeable, lovable or unlovable. I find you likable if I like myself in your presence, if you create an atmosphere within which I like myself.”

On This Day … 08 November [2022]

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People (Births)

People (Deaths)

  • 2007 – Chad Varah, English priest, founded The Samaritans (b. 1911).

Hermann Rorschach

Hermann Rorschach (08 November 1884 to 02 April 1922) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

His education in art helped to spur the development of a set of inkblots that were used experimentally to measure various unconscious parts of the subject’s personality. His method has come to be referred to as the Rorschach test, iterations of which have continued to be used over the years to help identify personality, psychotic, and neurological disorders. Rorschach continued to refine the test until his premature death at age 37.

Chad Varah

Edward Chad Varah CH CBE (12 November 1911 to 08 November 2007) was a British Anglican priest and social activist from England. In 1953, he founded the Samaritans, the world’s first crisis hotline, to provide telephone support to those contemplating suicide.

The Samaritans

Samaritans is a registered charity aimed at providing emotional support to anyone in emotional distress, struggling to cope or at risk of suicide throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, often through its telephone helpline. Its name derives from the biblical Parable of the Good Samaritan although the organisation itself is not religious.

Its international network exists under the name Befrienders Worldwide, which is part of the Volunteer Emotional Support Helplines (VESH) with Lifeline International and the International Federation of Telephone Emergency Services (IFOTES).

On This Day … 07 November [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1929 – Eric Kandel, Austrian-American neuroscientist and psychiatrist, Nobel Prize laureate.

Eric Kandel

Eric Richard Kandel (born Erich Richard Kandel, 07 November 1929) is an Austrian-born American medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry, a neuroscientist and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. He was a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. He shared the prize with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard.

He is a Senior Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was also the founding director of the Centre for Neurobiology and Behaviour, which is now the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University. He currently serves on the Scientific Council of the Brain & Behaviour Research Foundation. Kandel’s popularised account chronicling his life and research, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind, was awarded the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology.