Hi all,
I thought this post from a different list (Society for Community Research
and Action, part of the APA) might be of interest to people here given the
recent postings about George Albee.
Rebekah
 

-----Original Message-----
From: SCRA-L Div27 General Membership List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Jenkins, Richard (NIH/NIDA) [E]
Sent: 16 July 2006 23:23
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [SCRA-L] 2 Obituaries for George Albee

From today's NY Times & Cleveland Plain Dealer

G. W. Albee, 84, Psychologist Who Tied Poverty and Illness, Dies

By JEREMY PEARCE
Published: July 15, 2006

George W. Albee, a psychologist and former president of the American
Psychological Association who argued that poverty and social deprivation
were the root causes of many mental and emotional disorders, died on July 8
at his home in Longboat Key, Fla. He was 84.
His death was confirmed by his family.

Dr. Albee advanced his thesis in the 1960's, when he began to criticize the
biochemical therapies that psychiatry had developed to treat mental
disorders. Writing in The American Psychologist and other journals, he made
a case for considering violence, unemployment, child abuse and social
stresses as primary forces that set off psychological problems like
depression and anxiety disorders.

Nicholas A. Cummings, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of
Nevada at Reno and a former president of the psychological association,
debated Dr. Albee's thesis with him in the 1970's, in person and in print.
Dr. Cummings recalled that Dr. Albee "was never timid in taking the position
that prescribing medication was almost never appropriate in dealing with
mental issues."

Dr. Albee believed that many disorders could be better dealt with by easing
social stresses, particularly on children. And he argued that a society
could prevent mental disorders on a mass scale by reapportioning its
resources to address problems in education, housing, drug abuse and
nutrition among underprivileged children.

A collaborator, Justin M. Joffe, a professor of psychology at the University
of Vermont, said Dr. Albee had "concluded a long time ago that you were
never going to have the resources to treat enough people in one-to-one
therapy, and that you needed the more effective approach of prevention."

Much of Dr. Albee's work was based on his reviews of existing studies. He
singled out I.Q. tests as an element that helped perpetuate harmful social
and racial stereotypes.

I.Q. tests "have been shown to have no magical properties," he wrote in an
Op-ed article in The New York Times in 1978.

He continued: "Rather, they are only one of many ways of studying the child.
They are more a measure of past achievement and of social-class experience
than they are of some mysterious abstraction called intelligence."

George Wilson Albee was born in St. Mary's, Pa. He received an undergraduate
degree from Bethany College and a master's degree and a doctorate in
psychology from the University of Pittsburgh.

From 1954 to 1971, he taught at Western Reserve University, now Case Western
Reserve, in Cleveland, where he was a professor of psychology. Dr. Albee
then moved to the University of Vermont, where he was named professor
emeritus of psychology in 1992.

He was president of the American Psychological Association in 1969 and 1970.
He was also a former president of the American Association for Applied and
Preventive Psychology. Dr. Albee is survived by his wife, Margaret Tong. A
previous marriage, to Constance Impallaria, ended in divorce. He is also
survived by two sons, Luke, of Washington, and Alexander, of Plymouth,
Minn.; two daughters, Marina of St. Petersburg, Russia, and Sarah Albee
Willson of Watertown, Conn.; and 10 grandchildren.

George Albee, mental-health advocate, Case psychology department chairman
Sunday, July 16, 2006 Richard M. Peery Plain Dealer Reporter

George Albee, who headed the American Psychological Associa tion while he
chaired the psychology de partment at Case Western Reserve Uni versity, died
July 8 at his home in Long boat Key, Fla. He was 84.

Albee was an early advocate for prevention in fighting mental illness. He
believed social depravation to be the major cause of mental problems. He
gave speeches around the world, urging the elimination of racism, sexism and
poverty as the way to create healthy societies.

Albee was born in St. Marys, Pa. He graduated from Bethany College in West
Virginia and served three years in the Army Air Forces. He earned a master's
degree and a doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh. After spending a
year at Helsinki University in Finland, Albee joined the Western Reserve
University faculty in 1954 and lived in Cleveland Heights.

He studied the early lives of people who developed schizophrenia. The Plain
Dealer reported in 1967 that his research was aided by the fact that
Cleveland schools had used the same IQ test for 40 years. He said he found
evidence that positive nurturing in childhood was important to preventing
later mental illness.

Albee also discerned evidence of schizoid behavior in governments. Many
people criticized him in 1961 when he told the Women's City Club that both
the United States and the Soviet Union were aberrant for basing foreign
relations on the possession of hydrogen bombs that could kill hundreds of
millions if they were ever used.

"The schizophrenic patient has lost any feeling for the emotional import of
his thoughts and plans. . . . What better description is there to
characterize modern man?" he asked.

He advocated closing state mental hospitals, which he called warehouses for
the insane poor, and replacing them with less-expensive community programs.
That would enable the kind of early treatment that is available to middle-
and upper-class patients, he argued.

Albee moved to the University of Vermont in 1971. He established the Vermont
Conference on the Primary Prevention of Psychopathology with sessions that
drew scholars from throughout the world. He retired in 1992.

He was appointed to mental-health commissions by presidents Eisenhower and
Carter. He was given the American Psychological Association's Gold Medal and
lifetime achievement awards.


George W. Albee

1921-2006

Survivors: wife, Margaret Tong; sons, Alexander of Plymouth, Minn., and Luke
of Washington, D.C.; daughter, Marina of St. Petersburg, Fla., and Sarah
Willson of Watertown, Conn.; and 10 grandchildren.

Services: Memorial Aug. 20 at the University of Vermont.

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