Boris Mayer Levinson | |
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| Born | July 1, 1907 Kalvarija, Suwałki Governorate, Russian Empire (now Lithuania) |
| Died | April 2, 1984 (aged 76) Brooklyn, New York City |
| Education | New York University (PhD, 1947) |
| Spouse(s) | Ruth Berkowitz (m. 1934, div. 1974); Aida Peñaranda (m. 1977, until his death) |
| Children | 2 |
Boris Mayer Levinson (July 1, 1907 - April 2, 1984) was an American psychologist who accidentally discovered the therapeutic benefits of animal-assisted therapy. [1]
Levinson was born to Jewish parents in the Lithuanian town of Kalvarija, Suwałki Governorate, then in the Russian partition of the Russian Empire. He was the third eldest of four siblings. When Levinson was 14, his family emigrated in 1923 to the United States to New York City. The Levinson family established themselves in Brooklyn, East New York. He graduated from Eastern District High School in Brooklyn and afterwards became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1930. [2] [3] [4]
Continuing with his studies, Levinson completed his Bachelor of Science at the City University of New York in 1937, and in 1938 he earned a Master of Science in Education. In 1947, he earned his PhD in clinical psychology from New York University. His dissertation, "A Comparative Study of Certain Homeless and Unattached Domiciled Men," lead him to become a pioneer in the study of homeless men; [4] [5] he wrote several articles about the topic. He also wrote about a variety of other topics, such as the psychological traits of children of traditional Jewish backgrounds, [6] [7] [8] childhood autism, intellectual disability and animal assisted therapy. [4]
In 1953, while giving therapy to a withdrawn child Levinson observed that the child spoke and opened up to his dog Jingles. This led to the accidental discovery about the possible utilization of dogs in therapy. Initially, he dismissed the idea, but later, in 1961, wrote an article titled "The dog as a 'co-therapist'," which he later presented at a meeting of the American Psychological Association. Much of the audience responded to him with ridicule, while others accepted his ideas. [4] [9] [10] Levinson's first article about the human-animal bond paved the way for later research in this field. He also coined the term "pet therapy" on his second article about the human-animal bond in 1964. [11] [4]
He continued to write more articles and books on the topic. [4] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] Levinson is known as one of the fathers of the field of animal-assisted therapy. [4] [9]
Having been born to Jewish parents and having spent most of his life in Brooklyn, New York, Levinson wrote a significant number of papers featuring Jewish subjects. Notably, Levinson conducted numerous studies on the intelligence of Jewish children and adolescents. Especially considering the Jewish population, he held in high regard scientific integrity. This is clearly evident in a scathing metatextual critique Levinson wrote in 1980. [19]
In 1934, Levinson married his first wife, Ruth Berkowitz, and they had two sons. They later divorced and Levinson married for the second time to Aida Peñaranda, a diplomat from Bolivia, in 1974. [4]
Levinson died of a heart attack in 1984. He was the director of human animal companion therapy at the Blueberry Center and was professor emeritus of psychology of Yeshiva University. [4] [1]
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression, PTSD and anxiety disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions and their associated behaviors to improve emotional regulation and develop personal coping strategies that target solving current problems. Though it was originally designed to treat depression, its uses have been expanded to include many issues and the treatment of many mental health and other conditions, including anxiety, substance use disorders, marital problems, ADHD, and eating disorders. CBT includes a number of cognitive or behavioral psychotherapies that treat defined psychopathologies using evidence-based techniques and strategies.
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.
Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome problems. Psychotherapy aims to improve an individual's well-being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome behaviors, beliefs, compulsions, thoughts, or emotions, and to improve relationships and social skills. Numerous types of psychotherapy have been designed either for individual adults, families, or children and adolescents. Certain types of psychotherapy are considered evidence-based for treating some diagnosed mental disorders; other types have been criticized as pseudoscience.
Clinical psychology is an integration of human science, behavioral science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. Central to its practice are psychological assessment, clinical formulation, and psychotherapy, although clinical psychologists also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration. In many countries, clinical psychology is a regulated mental health profession.
Logotherapy is a form of existential therapy developed by neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. It is founded on the premise that the primary motivational force of individuals is to find meaning in life. Frankl describes it as "the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy" along with Freud's psychoanalysis and Alfred Adler's individual psychology.
Acceptance in psychology is a person's recognition and assent to the finality of a situation without attempting to change or protest it. This plays out at both the individual and societal level as people experience change.
Joseph Nicolosi was an American clinical psychologist who advocated and practised "reparative therapy", a form of the pseudoscientific treatment of conversion therapy that he claimed could help people overcome or mitigate their homosexual desires and replace them with heterosexual ones. Nicolosi was a founder and president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Medical institutions warn that conversion therapy is ineffective and may be harmful, and that there is no evidence that sexual orientation can be changed by such treatments.
Robert Ladd Thorndike was an American psychometrician and educational psychologist who made significant contributions to the analysis of reliability, the interpretation of error, cognitive ability, and the design and analysis of comparative surveys of achievement test performance of students in various countries.
Semantic satiation is a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who then perceives the speech as repeated meaningless sounds. Extended inspection or analysis in place of repetition also produces the same effect.
Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is an alternative or complementary type of therapy that includes the use of animals in a treatment. The goal of this animal-assisted intervention is to improve a patient's social, emotional, or cognitive functioning. Studies have documented some positive effects of the therapy on subjective self-rating scales and on objective physiological measures such as blood pressure and hormone levels.
Leslie Samuel Greenberg is a Canadian psychologist born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is one of the originators and primary developers of Emotion-Focused Therapy for individuals and couples. He is a professor emeritus of psychology at York University in Toronto, and also director of the Emotion-Focused Therapy Clinic in Toronto. His research has addressed questions regarding empathy, psychotherapy process, the therapeutic alliance, and emotion in human functioning.
Although modern, scientific psychology is often dated from the 1879 opening of the first psychological clinic by Wilhelm Wundt, attempts to create methods for assessing and treating mental distress existed long before. The earliest recorded approaches were a combination of religious, magical and/or medical perspectives. Early examples of such psychological thinkers included Patañjali, Padmasambhava, Rhazes, Avicenna and Rumi.
Reflective listening is a communication strategy used to better understand a speaker's idea by offering your understanding of their idea back to the speaker in order to confirm that the idea has been understood correctly. It is a more specific strategy than general methods of active listening.
Common factors theory, a theory guiding some research in clinical psychology and counseling psychology, proposes that different approaches and evidence-based practices in psychotherapy and counseling share common factors that account for much of the effectiveness of a psychological treatment. This is in contrast to the view that the effectiveness of psychotherapy and counseling is best explained by specific or unique factors that are suited to treatment of particular problems.
The human–canine bond is rooted in the domestication of the dog, which began occurring through their long-term association with hunter-gatherers more than 30,000–40,000 years ago. The earliest known relationship between dogs and humans is attested by the 1914 discovery of the Bonn–Oberkassel dog, who was buried alongside two humans in modern-day Oberkassel, Germany, approximately 15,000 years ago. For centuries, the phrase "man's best friend" has commonly been used to refer to dogs, as they were the first species and the only large carnivore to have been domesticated. This companionship is most evident in Western countries, such as the United States, where 44% of households were found to be keeping at least one dog as a pet.
Paul J. Moses was a clinical professor in charge of the Speech and Voice Section, Division of Otolaryngology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, San Francisco, where he conducted research into the psychology of the human voice, seeking to show how personality traits, neuroses, and symptoms of mental disorders are evident in the vocal tone or pitch range, prosody, and timbre of a voice, independent of the speech content.
Between 5% and 10% of homeless peoplein the United States own pets. Studies of homeless pet owners in urban settings show a sense of identity and community connection between pets and their owners. This topic is part of the Animals and Society branch of study in the field of Sociology, and is also an issue with the values and responsibility of pet ownership.
Eclectic psychotherapy is a form of psychotherapy in which the clinician uses more than one theoretical approach, or multiple sets of techniques, to help with clients' needs. The use of different therapeutic approaches will be based on the effectiveness in resolving the patient's problems, rather than the theory behind each therapy.
Samuel Abraham Corson was an American professor of psychiatry at Ohio State University who, with his wife Elizabeth, led early research into pet therapy, which contributed to dogs and other pets becoming commonplace in settings such as nursing homes.
George Earl Murphy was an American psychiatrist who made seminal contributions to research on suicide, psychotherapy, and alcoholism.
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