1914 – Rais Amrohvi, Pakistani psychoanalyst, poet, and scholar (d. 1988).
1922 – Mark Rosenzweig, American psychologist and academic (d. 2009).
People (Deaths)
1986 – Charlotte Wolff, German-English psychotherapist and physician (b. 1897).
Rais Amrohvi
Rais Amrohvi (Urdu: رئیس امروہوی), whose real name was Syed Muhammad Mehdi (1914-1988) was a Pakistani scholar, Urdu poet and psychoanalyst and elder brother of Jaun Elia. He was known for his style of qatanigari (quatrain writing). He wrote quatrains for Pakistani newspaper Jang for several decade. He promoted the Urdu language and supported the Urdu-speaking people of Pakistan. His family is regarded as family of poets.
The Sindh Assembly passed The Sind Teaching, Promotion and Use of Sindhi Language Bill, 1972 that created conflict and language violence in the regime of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, he wrote his famous poem Urdu ka janaza hai zara dhoom say niklay (It is the funeral of Urdu, carry it out with fanfare). He also intended to translate the Bhagavad Gita into standard Urdu.
Mark Rosenzweig
Mark Richard Rosenzweig (12 September 1922 to 20 July 2009) was an American research psychologist whose research on neuroplasticity in animals indicated that the adult brain remains capable of anatomical remodelling and reorganisation based on life experiences, overturning the conventional wisdom that the brain reached full maturity in childhood.
Charlotte Wolff
Charlotte Wolff (30 September 1897 to 12 September 1986) was a German-British physician who worked as a psychotherapist and wrote on sexology and hand analysis. Her writings on lesbianism and bisexuality were influential early works in the field.
1988 – Virginia Satir, American psychotherapist and author (b. 1916).
2015 – Norman Farberow, American psychologist and academic (b. 1918).
Virginia Satir
Virginia Satir (26 June 1916 to 10 September 1988) was an influential American author and psychotherapist, recognised for her approach to family therapy. Her pioneering work in the field of family reconstruction therapy honoured her with the title “Mother of Family Therapy”. Her most well-known books are Conjoint Family Therapy, 1964, Peoplemaking, 1972, and The New Peoplemaking, 1988.
She is also known for creating the Virginia Satir Change Process Model, a psychological model developed through clinical studies. Change management and organisational gurus of the 1990s and 2000s embrace this model to define how change impacts organisations.
Norman Farberow
Norman Louis Farberow (12 February 1918 to 10 September 2015) was an American psychologist, and one of the founding fathers of modern suicidology.
He was among the three founders in 1958 of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Centre, which became a base of research into the causes and prevention of suicide.
1939 – Adolf Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill and disabled people.
People (Births)
1848 – Auguste Forel, Swiss myrmecologist, neuroanatomist, and psychiatrist (d. 1931).
1902 – Kazimierz Dąbrowski, Polish psychiatrist and psychologist (d. 1980).
1950 – Phil McGraw, American psychologist, author, and talk show host.
Auguste Forel
Auguste-Henri Forel (01 September 1848 to 27 July 1931) was a Swiss myrmecologist, neuroanatomist, psychiatrist and eugenicist, notable for his investigations into the structure of the human brain and that of ants. For example, he is considered a co-founder of the neuron theory.
Forel is also known for his early contributions to sexology and psychology. From 1978 until 2000 Forel’s image appeared on the 1000 Swiss franc banknote.
Kazimierz Dabrowski
Kazimierz Dąbrowski (01 September 1902 to 26 November 1980) was a Polish psychologist, psychiatrist, and physician.
He is best known for his theory of “positive disintegration” as a mechanism in personality development. He was also a poet who used the pen name “Paul Cienin, Paweł Cienin”.
Phil McGraw
Phillip Calvin McGraw (born 01 September 1950), better known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality, author and the host of the television show Dr. Phil. He holds a doctorate in Clinical psychology, though he ceased renewing his license to practice Psychology in 2006.
McGraw rose to fame with appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the late 1990s. Oprah Winfrey then helped McGraw launch his own programme, Dr. Phil, in September 2002. The show is formatted as an advice show.
1920 – Wilhelm Wundt, German physician, psychologist, and philosopher (b. 1832).
Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (16 August 1832 to 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the founders of modern psychology.
Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist. He is widely regarded as the “father of experimental psychology”. In 1879, at University of Leipzig, Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research. This marked psychology as an independent field of study. By creating this laboratory he was able to establish psychology as a separate science from other disciplines. He also formed the first academic journal for psychological research, Philosophische Studien (from 1881 to 1902), set up to publish the Institute’s research.
A survey published in American Psychologist in 1991 ranked Wundt’s reputation as first for “all-time eminence” based on ratings provided by 29 American historians of psychology. William James and Sigmund Freud were ranked a distant second and third.
Victor Andreevich Skumin (born 30 August 1948) is a Russian and Soviet scientist, psychiatrist, philosopher and writer.
After graduating from the Kharkiv National Medical University in 1973, in 1976, he became a psychotherapist in Kiev Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery. In 1978, he described a new disease, the Skumin syndrome. He introduced a method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion for psychological rehabilitation of cardiosurgical patients (1979).
From 1980 to 1990, he was professor of psychotherapy at the Kharkiv Medical Academy of Post-graduate Education. The main result of his scientific activity was the discovery of the “syndrome of the neurotic phantom of somatic disease” and a “concept of the mental constituent of a chronic somatic disease”.
From 1990 to 1994, Skumin held positions as chaired professor of psychology and pedagogy, and of physical education and Health life at the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture. In 1994, he was elected to the post of the President-founder of the World Organisation of Culture of Health (Moscow). In 1995, Skumin became the first editor-in-chief of the journal To Health via Culture. He is known for inventing a popular term “Culture of Health” (1968).
Besides psychiatry and psychology, Skumin writes on healthy lifestyle, yoga, and philosophy. He co-authored series of illustrated books and articles on Agni Yoga, Roerichism, Russian cosmism, transhumanism, and New Age. He wrote books of fiction and lyrics for several songs.
1935 – László Garai, Hungarian psychologist and scholar.
Laszlo Garai
László Garai (born 29 August 1935) is a scholar of psychology: studies theoretical psychology, social psychology and economic psychology.
Early Life
Garai was born in Budapest. He graduated in philosophy and psychology from the Faculty of Arts of Budapest University (1959).
He obtained his Candidate degree from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences with a thesis on a specifically human basic need.
He obtained his Doctor of Science degree from the Hungarian Academy of Science with a thesis on social identity and paradoxes of its psychic elaboration.
Professional Work
László Garai started his career as editor at the Encyclopaedia Department of the Hungarian academic publishing house Akadémiai Kiadó. After the defence of his thesis above on specifically basic human need, he concluded this research as a fellow of the Institute for Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1964-1971). According to his hypothesis, a paradoxical need for a needfree activity is specific for humans and substantial for their other needs. The structure of the hypothesized need is isomorphic with that of the work considered as a “specifically human basic activity” and defined as that of arranging in one and the same structure ends and means. The hypothesis is based on the activity theory of Alexei Leontiev.
He won a Keldysh Scholarship (post doctoral scholarship founded by Keldysh, president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, to support joint Soviet-Hungarian academic research projects) to the Department of scientific discoveries’ psychology in the Institute for History of Natural Sciences and Technology in the Soviet Academy of Sciences (Moscow, 1969-1970)). There Garai studied simultaneous scientific discoveries (such as that of Bolyai and Lobachevsky).
In 1970, Garai founded in the Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences a research unit that became the first in Hungary research team of economic psychology and a centre of Vygotskian theoretical research. head of that department (1971-1979) and research advisor (1998-2002). He worked at the Laboratoire Européen de Psychologie Sociale (Paris, 1971, 1973 and 1977) and directed psycho-economic research supported by the National Scientific Research Foundation (1990-2005).
Garai was a member of the advisory board of the Hungarian Ministry of Finance. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology.
1903 – Bruno Bettelheim, Austrian-American psychologist and author (d. 1990).
People (Deaths)
1757 – David Hartley, English psychologist and philosopher (b. 1705).
Bruno Bettelheim
Bruno Bettelheim (28 August 1903 to 13 March 1990) was an Austrian-born psychologist, scholar, public intellectual and author who spent most of his academic and clinical career in the United States. An early writer on autism, Bettelheim’s work focused on the education of emotionally disturbed children, as well as Freudian psychology more generally. In the US, he later gained a position as professor at the University of Chicago and director of the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School for Disturbed Children, and after 1973 taught at Stanford University.
Bettelheim’s ideas, which grew out of those of Sigmund Freud, theorised that children with behavioural and emotional disorders were not born that way, and could be treated through extended psychoanalytic therapy, treatment that rejected the use of psychotropic drugs and shock therapy. During the 1960s and 1970s he had an international reputation in such fields as autism, child psychiatry, and psychoanalysis.
Much of his work was discredited after his death due to fraudulent academic credentials, allegations of abusive treatment of patients under his care, accusations of plagiarism, and lack of oversight by institutions and the psychological community.
David Hartley
David Hartley FRS (baptised 21 June 1705 to 28 August 1757) was an English philosopher and founder of the Associationist school of psychology.
1910 – William James, American psychologist and philosopher (b. 1842).
William James
William James (11 January 1842 to 26 August 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the late nineteenth century, one of the most influential philosophers of the United States, and the “Father of American psychology”.
Along with Charles Sanders Peirce, James established the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of functional psychology. A Review of General Psychology analysis, published in 2002, ranked James as the 14th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century. A survey published in American Psychologist in 1991 ranked James’s reputation in second place, after Wilhelm Wundt, who is widely regarded as the founder of experimental psychology. James also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James’s work has influenced philosophers and academics such as Émile Durkheim, W.E.B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, and Marilynne Robinson.
Born into a wealthy family, James was the son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James Sr. and the brother of both the prominent novelist Henry James and the diarist Alice James. James trained as a physician and taught anatomy at Harvard, but never practiced medicine. Instead he pursued his interests in psychology and then philosophy. James wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education, metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism. Among his most influential books are The Principles of Psychology, a groundbreaking text in the field of psychology; Essays in Radical Empiricism, an important text in philosophy; and The Varieties of Religious Experience, an investigation of different forms of religious experience, including theories on mind-cure.
1915 – James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Bradley Sheldon), American psychologist and science fiction author (d. 1987).
1923 – Arthur Jensen, American psychologist and academic (d. 2012).
People (Deaths)
2004 – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss-American psychiatrist and academic (b. 1926).
James Tiptree Jr.
Alice Bradley Sheldon (born Alice Hastings Bradley; 24 August 1915 to 19 May 1987) was an American science fiction author better known as James Tiptree Jr., a pen name she used from 1967 to her death. It was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree Jr. was a woman. From 1974 to 1977 she also used the pen name Raccoona Sheldon. Sheldon was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012.
She studied for her bachelor of arts degree at American University (1957-1959), going on to achieve a doctorate at George Washington University in Experimental Psychology in 1967. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the responses of animals to novel stimuli in differing environments. During this time, she wrote and submitted a few science fiction stories under the name James Tiptree Jr., in order to protect her academic reputation.
Arthur Jensen
Arthur Robert Jensen (24 August 1923 to 22 October 2012) was an American psychologist and writer. He was a professor of educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen was known for his work in psychometrics and differential psychology, the study of how and why individuals differ behaviourally from one another.
He was a major proponent of the hereditarian position in the nature and nurture debate, the position that genetics play a significant role in behavioural traits, such as intelligence and personality. He was the author of over 400 scientific papers published in refereed journals and sat on the editorial boards of the scientific journals Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences.
Jensen was controversial, largely for his conclusions regarding the causes of race-based differences in IQ. A 2019 study found him to be the most controversial intelligence researcher among 55 persons covered.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (08 July 1926 to 24 August 2004) was a Swiss-American psychiatrist, a pioneer in near-death studies, and author of the internationally best-selling book, On Death and Dying (1969), where she first discussed her theory of the five stages of grief, also known as the “Kübler-Ross model”.
Kübler-Ross was a 2007 inductee into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, was named by Time as one of the “100 Most Important Thinkers” of the 20th century and was the recipient of nineteen honorary degrees. By July 1982, Kübler-Ross taught 125,000 students in death and dying courses in colleges, seminaries, medical schools, hospitals, and social-work institutions. In 1970, she delivered an Ingersoll Lecture at Harvard University on the theme On Death and Dying.
Neuropsychological assessment was traditionally carried out to assess the extent of impairment to a particular skill and to attempt to determine the area of the brain which may have been damaged following brain injury or neurological illness.
With the advent of neuroimaging techniques, location of space-occupying lesions can now be more accurately determined through this method, so the focus has now moved on to the assessment of cognition and behaviour, including examining the effects of any brain injury or neuropathological process that a person may have experienced.
A core part of neuropsychological assessment is the administration of neuropsychological tests for the formal assessment of cognitive function, though neuropsychological testing is more than the administration and scoring of tests and screening tools. It is essential that neuropsychological assessment also include an evaluation of the person’s mental status. This is especially true in assessment of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Aspects of cognitive functioning that are assessed typically include orientation, new-learning/memory, intelligence, language, visuoperception, and executive function. However, clinical neuropsychological assessment is more than this and also focuses on a person’s psychological, personal, interpersonal and wider contextual circumstances.
Assessment may be carried out for a variety of reasons, such as:
Clinical evaluation, to understand the pattern of cognitive strengths as well as any difficulties a person may have, and to aid decision making for use in a medical or rehabilitation environment.
Scientific investigation, to examine a hypothesis about the structure and function of cognition to be tested, or to provide information that allows experimental testing to be seen in context of a wider cognitive profile.
Medico-legal assessment, to be used in a court of law as evidence in a legal claim or criminal investigation.
Miller outlined three broad goals of neuropsychological assessment. Firstly, diagnosis, to determine the nature of the underlying problem. Secondly, to understand the nature of any brain injury or resulting cognitive problem (see neurocognitive deficit) and its impact on the individual, as a means of devising a rehabilitation programme or offering advice as to an individual’s ability to carry out certain tasks (for example, fitness to drive, or returning to work). And lastly, assessments may be undertaken to measure change in functioning over time, such as to determine the consequences of a surgical procedure or the impact of a rehabilitation programme over time.
Diagnosis of a Neuropsychological Disorder
Certain types of damage to the brain will cause behavioural and cognitive difficulties. Psychologists can start screening for these problems by using either one of the following techniques or all of these combined:
History Taking
This includes gathering medical history of the patient and their family, presence or absence of developmental milestones, psychosocial history, and character, severity, and progress of any history of complaints. The psychologist can then gauge how to treat the patient and determine if there are any historical determinants for his or her behaviour.
Interviewing
Psychologists use structured interviews in order to determine what kind of neurological problem the patient might be experiencing. There are a number of specific interviews, including the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire, Neuropsychological Impairment Scale, Patient’s Assessment of Own Functioning, and Structured Interview for the Diagnosis of Dementia.
Test-Taking
Scores on standardised tests of adequate predictive validity predictor well current and/or future problems. Standardised tests allow psychologists to compare a person’s results with other people’s because it has the same components and is given in the same way. It is therefore representative of the person’s behaviour and cognition. The results of a standardised test are only part of the jigsaw. Further, multidisciplinary investigations (e.g. neuroimaging, neurological) are typically needed to officially diagnose a brain-injured patient.
Intelligence Testing
Testing one’s intelligence can also give a clue to whether there is a problem in the brain-behaviour connection. The Wechsler Scales are the tests most often used to determine level of intelligence. The variety of scales available, the nature of the tasks, as well as a wide gap in verbal and performance scores can give clues to whether there is a learning disability or damage to a certain area of the brain.
Testing Other Areas
Other areas are also tested when a patient goes through neuropsychological assessment. These can include sensory perception, motor functions, attention, memory, auditory and visual processing, language, problem solving, planning, organisation, speed of processing, and many others. Neuropsychological assessment can test many areas of cognitive and executive functioning to determine whether a patient’s difficulty in function and behaviour has a neuropsychological basis.
Information Gathered from Assessment
Tsatsanis and Volkmar believe that assessment can provide unique information about the type of disorder a patient has which allows the psychologist to come up with a treatment plan. Neuropsychological assessment can clarify the nature of the disorder and determine the cognitive functioning associated with a disorder. Assessment can also allow the psychologist to understand the developmental progress of the disorder in order to predict future problems and come up with a successful treatment package. Different assessments can also determine if a patient will be at risk for a particular disorder. It is important to remember, however, that assessing a patient at one time is not enough to go ahead and continue treatment because of the changes in behaviour that can occur frequently. A patient must be retested multiple times in order to make sure that the current treatment is still the right treatment. For neuropsychological assessments, researchers discover the different areas of the brain that is damaged based on the cognitive and behavioural aspects of the patient.
Benefits of Assessment
The most beneficial factor of neuropsychological assessment is that is provides an accurate diagnosis of the disorder for the patient when it is unclear to the psychologist what exactly they have. This allows for accurate treatment later on in the process because treatment is driven by the exact symptoms of the disorder and how a specific patient may react to different treatments. The assessment allows the psychologist and patient to understand the severity of the deficit and to allow better decision-making by both parties. It is also helpful in understanding deteriorating diseases because the patient can be assessed multiple times to see how the disorder is progressing.
One area where neuropsychological assessments can be beneficial is in forensic cases where the defendant’s competency is being questioned due to possible brain injury or damage. A neuropsychological assessment may show brain damage when neuroimaging has failed. It can also determine whether the individual is faking a disorder (malingering) in order to attain a lesser sentence.
Most neuropsychological testing can be completed in 6 to 12 hours or less. This time, however, does not include the role of the psychologist interpreting the data, scoring the test, making formulations, and writing a formal report.
Qualifications for Conducting Assessments
Neuropsychological assessments are usually conducted by doctoral-level (Ph.D., Psy.D.) psychologists trained in neuropsychology, known as clinical neuropsychologists. The definition and scope of a clinical neuropsychologist is outlined in the widely accepted Houston Conference Guidelines. They will usually have postdoctoral training in neuropsychology, neuroanatomy, and brain function. Most will be licensed and practicing psychologists in their particular field. Recent developments in the field allow for highly trained individuals such as psychometrists to administer selected instruments, though determinations regarding testing results remain the responsibility of the doctor.
Mental Health Matters 
You must be logged in to post a comment.