Tag: Psychologist

On This Day … 31 March [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1930 – Yehuda Nir, Polish-American psychiatrist (d. 2014).

People (Deaths)

  • 2007 – Paul Watzlawick, Austrian-American psychologist and philosopher (b. 1921).

Yehuda Nir

Yehuda Nir (31 March 1930 to 19 July 2014) was a Polish-born American Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist and author of The Lost Childhood.

Nir posed as a Roman Catholic and learned Latin to escape Nazi persecution in Poland during World War II. Nir’s ordeal led him to a career as a psychiatrist, specialising in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and severely ill children. He immigrated to the United States in 1959 to complete medical residencies in New York City and Philadelphia. He served as the chief of child psychiatry of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre from 1979 until 1986.

Paul Watzlawick

Paul Watzlawick (25 July 1921 to 31 March 2007) was an Austrian-American family therapist, psychologist, communication theorist, and philosopher.

A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he commented in the fields of family therapy and general psychotherapy. Watzlawick believed that people create their own suffering in the very act of trying to fix their emotional problems. He was one of the most influential figures at the Mental Research Institute and lived and worked in Palo Alto, California.

Who is Jaqueline Gomes de Jesus?

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Introduction

Jaqueline Gomes de Jesus (born 07 March 1978) is a Brazilian psychologist, writer, and LGBT activist.

Biography

Jesus is the daughter of a computer operator and a mining science teacher. She has a sibling, a younger brother. Jesus lived most of her life in Ceilândia.

A good student, she studied chemistry, for a year before switching majors. She holds an M.Sc. in Psychology from the University of Brasília, and a PhD in Social Psychology, Work and Organisations from the same institution.

She worked at the University of Brasília from 2003-2008 as a diversity adviser and also coordinated a centre for black students. She was one of the organisers of Brasilia’s Pride parade, and participated in the development of Brazil’s goals for the UN’s Millennium Dome. Jesus has proactively addressed discriminatory actions, refusing to accept passive prejudice. She began her human rights activism in 1997, with “Estructuración”, a Brasilia homosexual group, serving first as secretary and in 1999, became president. In that period, she worked alongside government and educational institutions, in fighting prejudice and valuing differences, speaking at the opening of the 5th National Conference on Human Rights.

Jesus participated in various social movements. In 2000, with Luiz Mott, she co-founded the Academic Association of Gays, Lesbians and Sympathizers of Brazil, serving as general secretary. She was appointed to the editorial board of the Grupo Gay Negro de Bahia; and founded the NGO Acciones Ciudades en Orientación sexual.

Key Publications

  • Homofobia : identificar e prevenir, 2015 (tr. “homophobia: identifying and preventing”).
  • Ainda que tardia : escravidão e liberdade no Brasil contemporâneo, 2016 (tr. “Although late: slavery and freedom in contemporary Brazil”).

Who was Morton Bard?

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Introduction

Morton Bard (born 07 March 1924 in Brooklyn, New York and died 04 December 1997) was an American psychologist, known for the research he undertook on the psychology of crime victims. He was a one-time member of the New York Police Department, a psychologist, and a professor who studied the reactions of crime victims.

Bard, in partnership with the police, conducted studies of crime victims (e.g. hostages, rape victims, and the families of murder victims). He published two volumes on domestic violence and crisis intervention. He also is recognised for having laid the foundation of victim-focused training into many law enforcement academies and the FBI National Academy.

In 1979, Bard co-authored The Crime Victim’s Book. This volume provides practical information on how best to identify and support the needs of crime victims. The Crime Victim’s Book was considered a “bible” for not only advocates but also crime victims. He is considered to have been a pivotal critical thinker in the development of the modern discipline of crisis intervention. He also wrote scholarly articles on the training of police officers in the application of different forms of crisis intervention out in the field.

Education

Bard received a bachelor’s degree in 1947 from St. John’s University. He later went on to receive a master’s degree in 1948 and a doctorate in 1953, both in psychology from New York University.

Career

Bard started off his career in health psychology. From 1951 to 1961, he was a member of a clinical and research group at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre. There, he analysed the psychological effects of cancer and cancer surgery. During this time, Bard shifted the psychological focus from the role of personality in predisposing one to illnesses to the psychological consequences of living with illnesses like cancer.

From 1965 to 1970, Bard taught at the City College of New York and was the director of its Psychology Centre. In 1971, Bard joined CUNY’s graduate school and university centre. He was a professor in the graduate school’s doctoral programs in social psychology and criminal justice. At the CUNY Graduate School, Bard studied hostage situations, third-party interventions in disputes, and the effects of personal crimes. Bard was a psychology professor at the City University of New York until his retirement in 1986.

In 1982, Bard was named chairman of the American Psychological Association’s task force on victims of crime and violence. In 1982, he was awarded the New York State Psychological Association ’s Kurt Lewin Award.

In 1985, he was appointed to a committee to advise the New York Mayor, Edward I. Koch, on the police department. The panel went on to make recommendations that included comprehensive changes in the training of police officers. Bard laid down the groundwork for training police as specialists in family crisis intervention. This included training for police officers on innovative crime prevention and mental health techniques so they were better able to provide immediate crisis intervention when emergencies arose and other professionals (e.g. social workers, psychologists) were not available.

In the 1980s, Bard was a consultant in psychology to the departments of medicine and neurology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, which in 1987 awarded him the Arthur M. Sutherland Award for “pioneering research in psycho-oncology.”

He was also the American Cancer Society’s national vice president for service and rehabilitation from 1986 to 1991.

Personal Life

Bard married Arlene Cohen in 1948 and had two daughters (Erica Riley and Pamela Richlin).

Death

Bard died of cancer in his home in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 73 on 04 December 1997.

Publications

Bard, M., & Sutherland, A. M. (1955). Psychological impact of cancer and its treatment IV. Adaptation to radical mastectomy. Cancer, 8(4), 656-672.

Bard, M., & Berkowitz, B. (1967). Training police as specialists in family crisis intervention: A community psychology action program. Community Mental Health Journal, 3, 315–317.

Bard, M. (1969). Family intervention police teams as a community mental health resource. Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science, 60, 247–250.

Bard, M., & Sangrey. D. (1986). The Crime Victim’s Book. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press.

Zacker, J., & Bard, M. (1973). Effects of conflict management training on police performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 58(2), 202.

On This Day … 30 March [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1882 – Melanie Klein, Austrian-English psychologist and author (d. 1960).

People (Deaths)

  • 1873 – Bénédict Morel, Austrian-French psychiatrist and physician (b. 1809).

Melanie Klein

Melanie Klein (née Reizes; 30 March 1882 to 22 September 1960) was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis.

She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Klein suggested that pre-verbal existential anxiety in infancy catalysed the formation of the unconscious, resulting in the unconscious splitting of the world into good and bad idealisations. In her theory, how the child resolves that split depends on the constitution of the child and the character of nurturing the child experiences; the quality of resolution can inform the presence, absence, and/or type of distresses a person experiences later in life.

Benedict Morel

Bénédict Augustin Morel (22 November 1809 to 30 March 1873) was a French psychiatrist born in Vienna, Austria.

He was an influential figure in the field of degeneration theory during the mid-19th century.

Who is Tanya Byron?

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Introduction

Tanya Byron (born 06 April 1967) is a British psychologist, writer, and media personality, best known for her work as a child therapist on television shows Little Angels and The House of Tiny Tearaways.

She also co-created the BBC Two sitcom The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle with Jennifer Saunders, and still contributes articles to various newspapers.

In 2008, she became Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Edge Hill University and is the first and current Chancellor of the same institution.

Early Life

Byron’s father was the film and television director John Sichel, founder of ARTTS International in Yorkshire. Her mother was a nursing sister and a model.

When Byron was 15 years old, her German-born paternal grandmother was murdered by being battered to death by a woman who abused illicit drugs. Her grandmother knew the woman, who was in pursuit of money. Byron was perplexed by this cruelty, and at about that time she began to try to understand how anyone could do such a terrible thing and began to be interested in psychology.

Education

Byron was educated at North London Collegiate School, University of York (BSc Psychology, 1989), University College London (MSc Clinical Psychology, 1992), and University of Surrey (PhD, 1995). Her PhD thesis was entitled “The evaluation of an outpatient treatment programme for stimulant drug misuse”, and was completed at University College Hospital.

Career

Prior to training in Clinical Psychology, Byron worked as a researcher on the BBC’s Video Diaries documentary series. Once she qualified, Byron worked in the British National Health Service for 18 years in a number of public health areas such as drug addiction, STDs, and mental disorders.

In 2005, Byron was featured on French and Saunders’ Christmas Special as herself, who came in to sort out Dawn and Jennifer’s childish behaviour on the show. Subsequently, she co-wrote the series The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle with Jennifer Saunders. Byron has also co-authored a book on parenting based on the Little Angels show and two other books on child development and parenting, as well as writing weekly articles for The Times and contributing to several women’s magazines. She has also worked with the Home Office on the current changes to the Homicide Act as it relates to children and young people, and she also works with the National Family and Parenting Institute advising government and ministers on related policy.

In September 2007, it was announced that she would head an independent review in England – supported by the Department for Children, Schools, and Families, as well as the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport – into the potentially harmful effects of both the Internet and video games on children. This was published in March 2008 as “Safer Children in a Digital World”, but is commonly called the Byron Review.

In April 2008, Byron fronted a four-part show called Am I Normal? exploring the boundaries of acceptable behaviour.

In May 2008, she was elected as the first Chancellor of Edge Hill University, in Lancashire and installed at a ceremony in December 2008. Edge Hill University also appointed her to the post of Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, and she delivered her inaugural lecture, “The Trouble With Kids”, in March the following year.

In 2009, Byron was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of York.

Byron is the patron of Prospex, a charity which works with young people in North London. She is also a partner in a media company, Doris Partnership.

She has published The Skeleton Cupboard: The Making of a Clinical Psychologist in 2015.

Personal Life

Byron married The Bill actor Bruce Byron in Barnet, London, in 1997. They have a daughter (born 1995, Hendon, London) and a son (born 1998, Barnet). Tanya and Bruce met when Bruce applied to the very first ARTTS course.

Television

Little Angels

Tanya Byron, Stephen Briers, Rachel Morris and Laverne Antrobus became household names working on the British TV show Little Angels (which ran for three series), a docu-soap that follows the lives of families where the children have behavioural problems that are causing the parents difficulty. The show is seen as a ‘life line’ by the parents who are effectively calling professionals with years of experience of working with children and families to help them fix a problem that they believe beyond their ability to fix. Tanya Byron, Stephen Briers, Rachel Morris and Laverne Antrobus, monitor the behaviour of the family and the children before discussing with the parents the real underlying causes of the problem (which are nearly always in some way either caused by or contributed to by the parents themselves – usually by inadvertently rewarding inappropriate behaviour with their attention). They then discuss a course of action with them and later they coach them in how to change their own and their children’s behaviour to improve the situation (this is frequently done in scenes where the family is filmed doing something together with the parents receiving advice from the attending professional via an ear piece). The show is intended to be instructive to viewers in how to deal with common problems as well as of real help to the family being filmed (and of course entertaining).

The House of Tiny Tearaways

In 2005 Tanya began to host her own show called The House of Tiny Tearaways, a reality TV style show that brings three families experiencing problems into a large, purpose-built house where they are monitored and aided for a week. The show is vaguely similar to programmes like Big Brother, in that all the rooms have cameras in them and the families are frequently monitored in their activities with the audience shown highlights of a particular day. Each family stays in the house for six days in which time Tanya monitors them all for one day before having very honest and direct discussions with the parents about the issues and how they can be dealt with, and then guiding the families through courses of action, exercises and deliberate changes of behaviour on the parents’ side to deal with the problems. Tanya does not do this entirely singlehandedly, as one element of the programme is the support the parents receive from the other families who are in the house with them at the same time.

The show is characterised by: scenes of children misbehaving, therapy sessions between Tanya and the parents of the children (which are often very emotional and are sometimes the first time they have ever really discussed the problems they are facing), tasks in and outside the house which the families are set to help them practice the skills they have learnt (often having to do things they would normally find difficult, like take a child with eating problems to a restaurant) and by the ending, the families review any improvements or shortcomings they’ve made.

In 2007, Byron stated that she did not want to make any more television programmes on parenting as it had become “a well-marketed area”.

Am I Normal?

In 2008 Tanya presented a four-part series called Am I Normal? exploring the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. The episodes explore the themes of addiction, faith, sex and body image. The programme presents both behaviours and treatments which Dr Byron is able to explore objectively but with some common sense cynicism. Is having sex with 5,000 men within the range of normal behaviour? Is being attracted to pre-pubescent girls okay if you do not act on that attraction in a way that harms or coerces them? Are sex addiction or addiction to computer games real physiological addictions? Is hearing God different to hearing voices? These are the questions that she explores, without yielding to the temptation to give easy answers. This was based on the radio series presented by Vivienne Parry.

Radio

In 2020, Tanya Byron presented “Word of Mouth”, on BBC Radio Four, featuring an investigation into the benefits of ‘Talking to Strangers’. Previously, she presented All in the Mind, a BBC magazine radio programme about psychology and psychiatry.

In October 2013 she was the guest for BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. Her choices were “Absolute Beginners” by David Bowie, Baba O’Riley by The Who, Take Five by Dave Brubeck, “I Want That Man” by Debbie Harry, Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps by Doris Day, Uncertain Smile by The The, Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel and That’s Life by Frank Sinatra.

On This Day … 27 March [2022]

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People (Deaths)

  • 1946 – Karl Groos, German psychologist and philosopher (b. 1861).
  • 1998 – David McClelland, American psychologist and academic (b. 1917).

Karl Groos

Karl Groos (10 December 1861 to 27 March 1946, in Tübingen) was a philosopher and psychologist who proposed an evolutionary instrumentalist theory of play. His 1898 book on The Play of Animals suggested that play is a preparation for later life.

Groos was full Professor of philosophy in Gießen, Basel and 1911-1929 in Tübingen.

His main idea was that play is basically useful, and so it can be explained by the normal process of evolution by natural selection. When animals ‘play’ they are practising basic instincts, such as fighting, for survival. This is translated from the original as “pre-tuning”. Despite this insight, Groos’ work is seldom read today, and his connection of play with aesthetics has been termed “misguided”. Another area of study was the psychology of literature, including statistical analysis.

Among his scholars is the German philosopher Willy Moog (1888-1935) (doctorate on Goethe supervised by Karl Groos in Gießen 1909).

David McClelland

David Clarence McClelland (20 May 1917 to 27 March 1998) was an American psychologist, noted for his work on motivation Need Theory.

He published a number of works between the 1950s and the 1990s and developed new scoring systems for the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and its descendants. McClelland is credited with developing Achievement Motivation Theory, commonly referred to as “need for achievement” or n-achievement theory. A Review of General Psychology survey published in 2002, ranked McClelland as the 15th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

On This Day … 26 March [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1905 – Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist (d. 1997).

People (Deaths)

  • 2014 – Roger Birkman, American psychologist and author (b. 1919).
  • 2015 – Tomas Tranströmer, Swedish poet, translator, and psychologist Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1931).

Viktor Frankl

Viktor Emil Frankl (26 March 1905 to 02 September 1997) was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor.

He was the founder of logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life’s meaning as the central human motivational force. Logotherapy is part of existential and humanistic psychology theories.

Logotherapy was recognised as the third school of Viennese Psychotherapy; the first school was created by Sigmund Freud, and the second by Alfred Adler.

Frankl published 39 books. The autobiographical Man’s Search for Meaning, a best-selling book, is based on his experiences in various Nazi concentration camps.

Roger Birkman

Roger Winfred Birkman (01 February 1919 to 26 March 2014) was an American organizational psychologist. He was the creator of The Birkman Method, a workplace psychological assessment. Birkman received his Ph.D. in psychology in 1961 from the University of Texas at Austin. He was the founder and chairman of the board of Birkman International, Inc.

Tomas Transtromer

Tomas Gösta Tranströmer (15 April 1931 to 26 March 2015) was a Swedish poet, psychologist and translator. His poems captured the long Swedish winters, the rhythm of the seasons and the palpable, atmospheric beauty of nature. Tranströmer’s work is also characterised by a sense of mystery and wonder underlying the routine of everyday life, a quality which often gives his poems a religious dimension. He has been described as a Christian poet.

Tranströmer is acclaimed as one of the most important Scandinavian writers since the Second World War. Critics praised his poetry for its accessibility, even in translation. His poetry has been translated into over 60 languages. He was the recipient of the 1990 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the 2004 International Nonino Prize, and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature.

On This Day … 25 March [2022]

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People (Deaths)

Milton H. Erickson

Milton Hyland Erickson (05 December 1901 to 25 March 1980) was an American psychiatrist and psychologist specializing in medical hypnosis and family therapy.

He was founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis and a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychopathological Association. He is noted for his approach to the unconscious mind as creative and solution-generating. He is also noted for influencing brief therapy, strategic family therapy, family systems therapy, solution focused brief therapy, and neuro-linguistic programming.

On This Day … 23 March [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1900 – Erich Fromm, German psychologist and sociologist (d. 1980).
  • 1933 – Philip Zimbardo, American psychologist and academic.

People (Deaths)

  • 2008 – Vaino Vahing, Estonian psychiatrist, author, and playwright (b. 1940).

Erich Fromm

Erich Seligmann Fromm (23 March 1900 to 18 March 1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist.

He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the US. He was one of the founders of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory.

Philip Zimbado

Philip George Zimbardo (23 March 1933) is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University.

He became known for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment, which was later severely criticized for both ethical and scientific reasons. He has authored various introductory psychology textbooks for college students, and other notable works, including The Lucifer Effect, The Time Paradox, and The Time Cure. He is also the founder and president of the Heroic Imagination Project.

Vaino Vahing

Vaino Vahing (15 February 1940 to 23 March 2008, in Tartu), was an Estonian writer, prosaist, psychiatrist and playwright. Starting from 1973, he was a member of the Estonian Writers Union.

On This Day … 20 March [2022]

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People (Births)

  • 1895 – Fredric Wertham, German-American psychologist and author (d. 1981).
  • 1904 – B.F. Skinner, American psychologist and author (d. 1990).

Frederic Wertham

Fredric Wertham (born Friedrich Ignatz Wertheimer, 20 March 1895 to 18 November 1981) was a German-American psychiatrist and author. Wertham had an early reputation as a progressive psychiatrist who treated poor black patients at his Lafargue Clinic at a time of heightened discrimination in urban mental health practice. Wertham also authored a definitive textbook on the brain, and his institutional stressor findings were cited when courts overturned multiple segregation statutes, most notably in Brown v. Board of Education.

Despite this, Wertham remains best known for his concerns about the effects of violent imagery in mass media and the effects of comic books on the development of children. His best-known book is Seduction of the Innocent (1954), which asserted that comic books caused youth to become delinquents. Besides Seduction of the Innocent, Wertham also wrote articles and testified before government inquiries into comic books, most notably as part of a US Congressional inquiry into the comic book industry. Wertham’s work, in addition to the 1954 comic book hearings, led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority, although later scholars cast doubt on his observations.

B.F. Skinner

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (20 March 1904 to 18 August 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviourist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.

Considering free will to be an illusion, Skinner saw human action as dependent on consequences of previous actions, a theory he would articulate as the principle of reinforcement: If the consequences to an action are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the consequences are good, the probability of the action being repeated becomes stronger.

Skinner developed behaviour analysis, especially the philosophy of radical behaviourism, and founded the experimental analysis of behaviour, a school of experimental research psychology. He also used operant conditioning to strengthen behaviour, considering the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning, he invented the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner box), and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and Charles Ferster produced Skinner’s most influential experimental work, outlined in their 1957 book Schedules of Reinforcement.

Skinner was a prolific author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles. He imagined the application of his ideas to the design of a human community in his 1948 utopian novel, Walden Two, while his analysis of human behaviour culminated in his 1958 work, Verbal Behaviour.

Skinner, John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov, are considered to be the pioneers of modern behaviourism. Accordingly, a June 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.