Dr. Paula Joan Caplan

Dr. Paula Joan Caplan

Jacquelline Gollinge

Background

Doctor Paula Joan Caplan was born on July 7, 1974 in the United States of America and raised Springfield, Missouri. In her home town, she attended Greenwood Laboratory School from kindergarten until her high school graduation. She grew up with a mother experiencing a mental illness, which lead to the growth of her interest in the topic. As a teenager Caplan enjoyed reading Freud, but dreamed of becoming a journalist. Caplan recalls a professor from the undergraduate English program at Radcliffe College at Harvard University commenting that the assignment she had completed was “psychology, and not English”. After graduate school Caplan divorced and struggled to care for two step-children while planning for children of her own with her new partner. She spent several years working in Toronto, Canada and currently an associate at Harvard University’s DuBois Institute, working on the Voices of Diversity project and also helping to operate the Women and Public Policy Program of the Kennedy School at Harvard.

Education

 After Caplan’s graduation from Greenwood Laboratory School she received her A.B. with honors from Radcliffe College of Harvard University. Eventually, she went on to receive her M.A. and Ph.D in Clinical Psychology from Duke University. Caplan struggled through graduated school as many of her male professors told her she would never be able to train as a clinical psychologist. Subsequent to receiving her PhD, Caplan completed her clinical training at a hospital where she realized that her experiences at Duke were due to the over-competitiveness of the school. 

Career & Accomplishments

During Caplan’s years working in Toronto, Canada she became more involved in the criticism of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. She then wrote her first book on the knowledge of women’s health titled The Myth of Women’s Masochism which explored Freud’s idea that women are naturally masochistic. She argued that it is important to look at the environments in which women live in and their social experiences. Soon after the American Psychiatric Association attempted to propose masochism as a personality disorder. Later, Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder was also included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders without any evidence of its existence. Prior to both additions Caplan organized a petition and aligned herself with the Association of Women in Psychology, an women’s rights activist organization. Multifaceted, Caplan continues to do expert witness work for a range of court cases in which psychiatric diagnosis is an issue. She is also the author of books, plays, a playwright, an actor, and a director. One of these plays has included the harms of psychiatry and stigmatization. Today she still runs the website www.psychdiagnosis.net where people can share stories and learn about the contentious matters relating to diagnosis. As of June 2008 she has been the Research Associate at Harvard University’s DuBois Institute where she works on the project there titled Voices of Diversity. Moreover, Caplan is a former Full Professor of Applied Psychology and Head of the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies of Education. She has also held several lectures on women’s studies and assisted the Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

Relevance to Psychology of Women Class

Although Caplan is unaware of when her explicitly feminist voice began, she is positive that she is indeed a feminist. During her studies at Duke University she remembers feeling unhappy and not “smart” enough. Years later she spoke with a faculty member who told her that the male faculty felt challenged and intimidated by her intelligence. Moreover, Caplan’s work challenging the APA and Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders shows her commitment to the equality of women especially those who are stigmatized by mental disorders. By voicing her experiences she is allowing other women to understand and relate to the issues she has experienced being a student and women investigating psychology. She has written several pieces relating to women’s rights and issues women have faced in the past and are still facing today.

Video

Dr. Paula Caplan on How Psychiatrists Decide Who’s Normal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKbybLM12yc

Sources

http://www.paulajcaplan.net/

http://www.psychdiagnosis.net/paula_caplan.html

Posted by Jacquelline Gollinge 11/28/12

Maria P. P. Root

     

     Maria P. P. Root, Ph.D: clinical psychologist, published author, clay artist, social change advocate, and…plagiarist? When Maria was in elementary school and later again in graduate school she was accused of plagiarism because her teachers did not believe her work was her own. Her teachers exposed Maria at an early age to the reality of racism and reinforced its prevalence across time in her later years. Maria was born to a Caucasian father and Filipino mother. Having been born to a multiracial identity, Maria has wisely used her race-related experiences to inspire people within and without the field of psychology to investigate the truths behind racism and other social constructions that bound us from connecting to our authentic selves and each other. 

Background

Maria was born in Manila, Philippines on September 13th of 1955. She grew up in a poor family, barely able to put food on the table, the oldest of three. At a young age her family immigrated to the United States while the Asiatic Barred Zone act was still in place. The Asiatic Barred Zone Act is more broadly and commonly known as The Immigration Act of 1917. The act aimed to keep out certain "undesirable" people including people from different parts of Asia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Polynesian Islands and the surrounding areas including the Philipines. A few acts in the 1950s and The Immigrant Act of 1965 legally allowed many of these people to become true citizens although racist intentions still exist today as these new acts were fairly recent (only 47 years ago!). The Asiatic Barred Zone Act forced Maria and her family to enter the US through Guatamala and so she grew up in Los Angeles, California. She was strongly influenced by her mother who became a psychologist herself and strongly encouraged education. Maria's identity is rooted in hardship and suffering related to race, ethnicity, and gender. Her career in psychology reflects her journey and strong passion for cognitive flexibility.

Education

Maria attended Catholic school as a young girl where she first encountered psychology as a client in therapy working on internalized guilt. Her mother exposed her to more psychology when she used Maria as a role play client for relaxation techniques and biofeedback. In 1977 Maria received her Bachelor's in Psychology and Sociology at the University of California at Riverside. In 1979 she received her Master's degree in Cognitive Psychology at Claremont University in Claremont, California. Then in 1983 she completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on minority mental health at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Career and Accomplishments

For twenty years and counting, Maria has been in practice working with couples, families, and individuals focusing on culture, transitioning, trauma, ethnic and racial identity, eating disorders, and workplace harassment. She has published books on these areas and lectured around the world for all kinds of organizations (universities, community groups, professional organizations etc).

Her most popular publications are "Racially Mixed People in America" (1992), the first modern text on racially mixed people, and the "Bill of Rights for Racially mixed People". She also wrote a book called "Love's Revolution: Interracial Marriage" accounting for the growth in interracial marriages and families. 

Here we can hear the rights that Maria Root coined from a woman inspired by Maria Root's work and intentions:

Maria's work and publications contributed to major changes in the United States Consensus (2000). The consensus changed the option for respondents to check more than one box for race, changing the national perception and identification with race and ethnicity.

Maria was President of the Washington State Psychologocial Associatin and chair of American Psychological Association's board for the Advancement of Psychology in Public Interest. She also spent some time teaching at the University of Hawaii and the University of Washington. These positions have provided her with opportunities to serve the public in ways that she could enact social change in social systems, a deep passion of hers.

Currently, Maria lives in Seattle, Washington where she still has a private practice, lectures, researches, and consults with law enforcement to provide psychological evaluations. She is also an active member of the Asian American Psychology Association. 

Relevance to Psychology of Women Class

Maria Root's significance to our class is based on her identity as a multiracial woman. Not only is it challenging to find equal opportunity and treatment as a woman in our society, but as a multiracial women it is even more challenging. Ethnic minority women, as we have learned, have higher rates of depression, poorer health, lower socioeconomic status and higher rates of poverty. Immigrant minority women have the added stress of different cultural norms upon entering the United States. Maria Root is an inspiration as an immigrant, multiracial woman herself having lived this challenge and her research has contributed to helping many women in similar positions and identities to cope with challenges as well embrace their natural born identities. Furthermore, Root's research and group treatment work with eating disorders in women has also contributed to women's understanding of positive body image and healthy eating habits. She takes a feminist approach to therapy realizing that many problems with identity be it race or gender stem from a flawed social system and false realities such as racist constructs. Her life, her research, and her service has been a great contribution to women's mental health and the general public's overall awareness of these issues and natural identities.

Sources

http://www.feministvoices.com/maria-p-p-root/

http://www.drmariaroot.com/about.php

http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/dec96/blurring5.html

http://drknow.newsvine.com/_news/2008/10/07/1965449-the-real-american-ethnic-shame-asiatic-barred-zone?threadId=381855

Carolyn Wood Sherif

Background

            Dr. Carolyn Wood Sherif was born on June 28^th, 1922 in Loogootee, Indiana. Her father was a professor of agriculture at Purdue University, and her mother was a steady homemaker. Being the youngest daughter of three, her parents encouraged all their children to obtain high levels of academic achievement; an example that Wood Sherif took seriously. Although she particularly favored science, she was also a talented writer. Wood  Sherif won three essay contests sponsored by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Chicago Tribune. She eventually met and married Muzafer Sherif in 1945 after obtaining a position to do research with him at Princeton University years prior. The two  had three daughters: Sue, Joan, and Ann. Before her death, Wood Sherif was appointed editor of the Journal of Social Issues. However, she was unable to take on the position due to her untimely death from cancer in July of 1982 at the age of 60.

Education

           Due to her father's employment at Purdue University, Wood Sherif was able to afford tuition at the school and studied science, graduating with a bachelor’s degree. Shortly after, she then attended the University of Iowa to complete her master’s. Wood Sherif had worked at Princeton for many years after as a researcher with her husband. However, in 1958, her husband encouraged her to work on her PhD at the University of Texas under the supervision of Wayne Holtzman. She was awarded her PhD in 1961. During her time at the University of Texas, she managed a project funded by the United States Office of Vocational Rehabilitation which focused on self-concept and personal goals of youth.

Career & Accomplishments

From 1947 to 1958, Carolyn Wood Sherif worked with her husband Muzafer on social research. However, because she did not have a PhD and was not affiliated with any university, most of Wood Sherif’s work was not fully appreciated and her husband received most of the credit. Wood Sherif became actively involved in the research done on the famous Robbers Cave experiments in 1954 on intergroup conflict and resolution. Following the completion of her PhD in 1961, she produced numerous papers and books regarding youth, reference groups, and attitudes on social judgment. Wood Sherif spent time as a visiting professor at Cornell University where she created the first women’s studies course. She began shifting her research focus to the psychology of gender in the mid-1960s. She wrote several papers focusing gender bias in research, gender roles, reproduction, and identity. She accredited her success and research to the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1972, she participated in the first graduate seminar on the psychology of women at Penn State. She later became a founding member of Division 35 of the American Psychological Association, which is today known as the Society for the Psychology of Women. She served as the Division's 7th president in 1979-1980 and was a consulting editor for the Psychology of Women Quarterly; the divisions’ psychological journal. She later received the Association for Women in Psychology's Distinguished Publication award in 1981and an award for her contribution to education in psychology in 1982. Division 35 has dedicated its most cherished award in her honor which acknowledges psychologists for their teaching, mentorship, research, and professional leadership in the field of psychology of women.

Relevance to Psychology of Women Class

Dr. Carolyn Wood Sherif’s significance to our class is based on her focus on gender identity and its effect on social construct. Wood Sherif believed that gender was strictly to be identified as a social term. She proclaimed that gender identity causes an individual to be aware of the gender schemes in his/her life and that he/she will develop a relationship to this existing scheme. Wood Sherif wanted to break the barrier between associating gender with biological sex and vice versa. Because different cultures have different gender associations for “male” and “female”, individuals must recognize the true complexity of their gender identity. She focused on multiple studies which involved a comprehensive understanding of how gender identity is related to the social environment of individuals. Wood Sherif characterized this as a "self-system". This “self-system” is a series of ideas and attitudes that have been created through a person’s interaction with other people and concentrates on who that person’s “self” is in relation to social relationships, activities, status, and cultural values. This idea of a self-system gives us a way to evaluate gender identity as a whole.

Sources

http://www.feministvoices.com/carolyn-wood-sherif/

http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/carolynwoodsherif.htm

Charlotte Buhler

Background

Charlotte Buhler was born on December 20, 1893, in Berlin, Germany. Her father, Walter Malachowski worked as an architect and her mother, Rose, was a successful musician.  Early in her life, Buhler showed interest in psychological processes and conducted a study of human thought processes as a student in high school. Before marrying her husband, Karl Buhler, in 1916, she had dreamed of meeting him because his work on human thought appeared to complement that of her own.  She then gave birth to their daughter, Ingeborg, in 1917 and then to their son, Rolf, in 1919. Her husband was sent to prison for speaking his anti-Nazi opinions and in 1939, Charlotte negotiated his release and he was transported to Norway. He then immigrated to America and was later joined by Charlotte in 1940. In the 1970s she then moved back to Germany to be closer to her son and then passed away in 1974 at the age of 80.

Education

Buhler’s studies lead her to universities at Freiburg, to Kiel, to Berlin, and then to Munich. As a graduate student she studied thought processes under Oswald Kulpe. She finished her Ph. D. in Munich in 1918. From 1924 to 1925 she studied at Columbia University on a Laura Spelman Memorial Rockefeller Fellowship. While studying at Columbia she was able to touch base with American scholars such as Edward Thorndike, Lawrence Frank, and Arnold Gesell.

Career & Accomplishments

After graduating from Munich in 1918, Charlotte and her husband began to teach at the Technical University Dresden, where from 1920 to 1922 she aided the Prussian government and the school board on a project on adolescence as well as lecturing. She then lived in Vienna from 1923 to 1938 where she did research at The Vienna Psychological Institute on psychological development from infancy to adolescence and designed tests to measure developmental milestones. After immigrating to America she lived in Minneapolis where she was a professor of psychology at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota. Then in 1941 she opened a child guidance clinic in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1943, Charlotte then returned to Minnesota where she worked at Minneapolis General Hospital as a clinical psychologist. After two years of working at the hospital, she and her husband moved to California and worked as a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles County Hospital until 1953. Also, during this time she had the position of assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern California Medical School. From 1953 to 1972 she ran a private practice in Los Angeles. During this time, she became known for her theoretical and clinical work which connected with the works of Rogers and Maslow. Charlotte was then elected the president of the American Association for Humanistic Psychology for 1955 and 1956, and during this time she collaborated with Maslow to help publicize the humanistic movement, also known as the Third Force.  In 1970, she was head of the First International Conference on Humanistic Psychology in Amsterdam.

Relevance to Psychology of Women Class

Charlotte Buhler is relevant to section of class on childhood and adolescence. She focused much of her work on the developmental processes of children from infancy to adolescence. She also worked with Rogers and Maslow in developing the core principles of humanistic psychology. She developed a theory of life goals that are based on four basic tendencies. These basic tendencies include: 1) the tendency to strive for personal satisfactions in sex, love, and ego recognition, 2) the tendency toward self-limiting adaptation for the purpose of fitting in, belonging, and gaining security, 3) the tendency toward self-expression and creative accomplishments, 4) the tendency toward integration or order-upholding. I believe we have touched based on these tendencies within several of reading, including in the section on childhood and adolescence as well as the section on body image which touches base with the fitting in and belonging tendency.

 

Sources

http://www.feministvoices.com/charlotte-buhler/

http://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-psychologists/charlotte-buhler.html

 
Posted by Patricia Carey 11/12/12

 

Sandra Lipsitz Bem

Sandra Lipsitz Bem

 

Background

Sandra Bem was born on June 22, 1944 in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Her father was a postal clerk and her mother was a secretary. Her mother constantly stressed to Sandra that housework and being a “housewife wasn’t any fun” (Bettis). She married at the age of 20 to Daryl Bem, an Associate Professor at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie-Mellon University), where they met as he supervised her independent study. Not fond of the idea of marriage, Sandra and Daryl drafted a plan for an egalitarian marriage, in which responsibilities were divided equally. Bem’s parents did not like the idea of her marriage. Sandra and Daryl had two children. After Sandra and Daryl moved to accept teaching jobs at Cornell University, Sandra and Daryl divorced, their egalitarian marriage failing as much of the principles were lost.

Education

In 1965 Bem attended Carnegie Tech where she earned her Bachelor's in Psychology. She transferred to a college in Indiana, and then when her grandmother passed away, Bem moved back to Pennsylvania and went back to Carnegie Tech. She attended Graduate School at the University of Michigan and studied child clinical psychology. She earned her Ph.D. in developmental psychology. She has a passion for research and believes that you should not waste time while doing research.

Career

Bem's career started at the first college she attended, as an Assistant professor in Psychology at Carnegie Tech. This is when Bem professionally became interested in sex and gender roles. She developed the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), distinguishing masculinity and femininity as two independent dimensions and that people could exhibit both characteristics. Standford University then offered Bem a teaching postion, which she accepted, but eventually left due to not receiving tenure. Bem then accepted a position at Cornell University, where she was an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Director of Women's Studies. In 1981 she became a Professor. Bem worked on her Gender Schema Theory up until the time of her retirement in 2010.

Accomplishments and Awards

Individual Awards:

       n  1976:  At 31 years-old, Bem received the American Psychological Association

           Distinguished Scientific Award for an early career contribution to psychology.

n  In the book Women In Psychology: A Biographic Sourcebook, Bem was recognized for the work she accomplished in personalities.

n  1977:  Bem received the Distinguied Publication Award of the Association for Women in Psychology of Women.

n  1985:  Awarded and honory Doctor of Science from Wilson College

Bem's book Lenses of Gender has won:

      n  1993: Best Book in Psychology from the Association of American Publishers

n  1994:  Annual Book Award given by the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender

n  Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology

n  Outstanding Book by the Gustavus Meyers center for the Study of Human Rights in North America

Bem has several published books, which can be viewed here: http://www.psych.cornell.edu/people/Faculty/slb6.html

Relevance to our Psychology of Women Class

Bem’s relevance to our class is significant when applying the Gender Schema Theory as it was mentioned in earlier class readings and is a perspective based on the development of women. A schema is a cognitive structure that organizes and guides a person’s perception of the stimuli coming in. It stores readily available information that we can go to quickly to makes associations. The Gender Schema Theorystates that we sex-type based on gender-schematic processing. Bem essentially theorized that we develop schemas of what it is meant to be male and female from society as children, and we internalize them into what we should be and apply it to ourselves. This is important to our class Psychology of Women, as Bem’s theory is a part of Feminist Therapy. Bem’s contribution to psychology in the form of the Gender Schema Theory expresses how limiting and labeling gender schemas truly are.

Reference Links

http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/sandrabem.html

http://www.feministvoices.com/sandra-bem/

http://www.psych.cornell.edu/sec/pubPeople/slb6/Gender%20Schema%20Theory.pdf

http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/sandrabem2.htm

Bonnie Ruth Strickland

Bonnie Ruth Strickland

 

 

Her Background

Bonnie Ruth Strickland was born on November 24^th, 1963 in Louisville Kentucky to Willie Whitfield and Roy Strickland. From a young age, Strickland felt that she was different and spent a good portion of her early life struggling with a lesbian identity. She had one younger brother and by the time she was eight her parents had separated and Strickland went  to live with her mother at 10 years old.  She enjoyed sports at a young age, specifically baseball and was given a chemistry set by her mother.  As a result she never put much stock in gender roles as many people encouraged her to work outside of them. She is still alive today

Her Education

Strickland through scholarships and waiting on tables, was able to afford to go to Alabama College for Women where her passion was to initially become an athlete and pursued a career path towards physical education  but later changed in her sophomore year to psychology and became interested in social issues, specifically racial prejudice. After graduating , Strickland applied for grad school at Ohio University where she met professors that were familiar with and utilized behavioral therapy who taught her each approach. Strickland also did clinical training at a Veteran Administration hospital in Palo Alto. She received her PhD in 1962

Her Professional Life

At 27, Strickland accepted a position at Emory University. After working two years as an assistant professor, she was promoted to Dean of Women which was geared towards helping out with problems that women faced at the college. At her time at this university she mostly struggled with her identity and focused her research mostly on marginalized races. Towards the end of her time at the college she did her first work with gay men and women and her research suggested that not only are gay men and women not more pathological then their straight counterparts, but that lesbians seem to be the healthiest overall.  

Her next stop was Amherst, University of Massachusetts where she felt much more at home due to the progressive nature of the school.

 There she taught what might be considered the first lesbian psychology course which the university endorsed quite openly. She went on to become one of the faculty senate status of Women Committee and eventually the director of graduate studies for the department.  In 1976 she became the chair of the psychology department which she held for seven years before becoming an associate for the chancellor, Joseph Duffy, of the college.

In 1973 she chaired an APA committee that discussed discrimination against women, people of different races and gays and lesbians. She described this experience as “eye opening” in regards to women’s issues. She also became the 7^th head of the APA who was a woman and 3^rd president of the Clinical Division of the APA. In 2008 she was named an Elder at the National Multicultural Summit not just because of what she had done but just for who she is.

Her Works

One of her major contributions to psychology is in the study of something called “The Locus of Control” which is a complicated term to mean a person’s thought on whether they have more control over themselves or their environment or whether the environment itself has more control. In her dissertation, Strickland showed that whether one’s Locus of control was internal (the self as an agent) or external (the environment as the decider) could ultimately affect how a person behaves in various social circumstances.  Strickland’s research is also among the few that showed a link between activism and the locus of control. It is also amongst the most cited research that it has gained the title of “Citation Classic.” She also helped to create a scale for children to determine expectancies of reinforcement which was later adapted by others into a pre-school scale and an elderly scale. Now there is a scale for all age ranges. Her scale for children is the most cited and considered the most valid.

While this is often considered her most important contribution, she has various research which extend from dealing with conformity to prejudice to reaserch of development of gay men and lesbians. She was also heavily involved in spreading awareness of depression in women to such an extent that many of her graduate students on both the masters and doctoral levels have studied depression to a large degree.

(Strickland, B. R.  (1995).  Research on sexual orientation and human development:  A commentary.  Developmental Psychology, 31(1), 137‑140.)

Strickland, B. R.  (1992).  Women and depression.  Current Directions in Psychological Science, 1(4), 132-135.

Our Class and Her Work

                In regards to the Locus of Control experiments that she has done it can be easy to imagine the effects of one’s sense of efficacy towards their agency can affect the various actions people do towards one another. For instance,  by demonstrating a link between this locus of control and activism, we see that there is a certain kind of learned helplessness in the public who are part of a group that is maligned or marginalized which further perpetuates the problem instead of these groups being pro-active. Conversely, those who have high efficacy of their agency or internal locuses of control are more likely to be the types who go out and protest or engage in any form of social activism.

                Women, being a marginalized group (despite making up more than 50% of the world’s population now) can be considered to be disenfranchised by the world due to the patriarchal societies strangle hold on their rights and freedoms. This of course as we know by now can cause a myriad of mental health problems from the patholization of normal, expected behaviors of those who are oppressed (depression) and direct causes of some things like eating disorders (I don’t have control over my weight, society has deemed that skinny women are superior thus it is not my responsibility and there is nothing that can be done about it). I’ve talked a little about the vicious cycle that society plays on women and it is clear because of Bonnie Strickland’s research that this vicious cycle cannot end until everyone’s faith in themselves becomes higher than the doom of society. It is possible to change.

My  References

http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/strickland.html

http://www.feministvoices.com/bonnie-strickland/

Women in Psychology: A Bio-Bibliographic Sourcebook

Written by Nick Messinger on 11/5/12