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Jacob "Jacky" Lomranz (born 1937) is a professor emeritus at The School of Psychological Sciences at Tel Aviv University. He was a former head of the M.A. program for clinical-gerontological psychology at the Ruppin Academic Center. [1]
Jacob Lomranz was born in Leipzig, Germany. Lomranz's family fled the country in 1939 under the growing threat of Nazism. The family lived in the Japanese Controlled Shanghai until February 1949, when they immigrated to Israel. [2]
He received his B.A. in psychology and philosophy from Tel Aviv University in 1965, and then went on to earn his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Duke University in 1971. He spent most of his professional career at Tel Aviv University, where he eventually became a professor and developed the curriculum for the study of adulthood and aging. [3]
Lomranz has devoted most of his academic life to gerontology, particularly from the psychological-clinical aspect. He established the unit for the psychology of adulthood and aging at Tel Aviv University, which eventually became the Herczeg Institute on Aging. [4]
He also established the special M.A. program for clinical-gerontological psychology at the Ruppin Academic Center, which focuses on therapy for the mature and elderly. [4]
During the years 2000-2004, he served as head of the Israel Gerontological Society.
He is presently the head of the Frenkel Research Fund for Research on Holocaust Survivors at the Tel-Aviv University and a board member of Amacha - National Israeli Center for Psychological Support of Survivors of the Holocaust and the Second Generation. He is the Program Director of Creative Aging in Eshel: The Association for the Planning and Development Services for the Aged in Israel.
Outside his academic life, Lomranz is an art collector and enthusiast. He learned to play piano and paint at a relatively advanced age and has exhibited his own work in Jaffa. [5]
Lomranz has developed a gerontological-humanistic approach, devoted to those who are coping with mental distress or existential crises. At the root of his research are the principles of developmental psychology. His studies focus on various topics related to psychological space and time, mental health in old age, the mental adjustment of Holocaust survivors, and conditions of stress and trauma on the personal, social and national levels. [4]
He has been particularly interested in the psychological meanings individuals give the physical-objective dimensions of space, shedding light on the differences in the way people establish their psychological worlds. [6]
Lomranz developed a teaching model for personality theories based on an evaluation of the field. He addressed the problems the professional psychologist faces when teaching the graduate clinical student, in order to derive a rationale for interdisciplinary and basic categories and dimensions serving as guidelines to the comprehension, examination, and teaching of personality theories. The teaching method integrates intellectual and experiential involvement. [7]
The development of the theory of Aintegreation (meaning lack of integration) is a central focus of Lomranz's research in the field of psychology, focusing on the dialectics of life with unresolved conflicts. Lomranz adopted a paradigm of contrast, relativity and paradox, as opposed to the traditional logic, continuity, unity and harmony. He concluded that the secret of adjustment, creativity and development, stems from human capability – found in the cognitive, emotional and positional levels – to tolerate a dialectic life where vagueness, lack of continuity, lack of synchronization and ambivalence rule. [8]
He studied people who had been through existential changes, such as loss, wars an old age, and indicated the need for the tolerance of problems in life which couldn't be resolved. He has stated that it was this aintegration that allowed the individual to achieve more personal insights, realistic interpretations, conduct in situations of uncertainty, effective risk-taking, and ultimately, acceptance and serenity. This theory may be applied to the study of personality and psychotherapeutic care. [8]
Lomranz was an Israeli pioneer in the implementation of clinical psychology for the aged population. He mapped the difficulties and special needs of mental health in old age, examined the psychological tools for determining mental health disorders, and characterized the various models of psychotherapy and mental care. He has shown how classical and post-Freudian theories could benefit aging people and how they could be utilized. [9]
Lomranz was among those who examined the long-term effects of Holocaust trauma, and he has held dozens of seminars about the research in the field. In a 1995 article, he demonstrated the effect of the research methodology on the characterization of the survivors' mental state, emphasizing the importance of studies of survivors sampled from the community (not in a clinical setting), for understanding how despite their vulnerability, most were able to display impressive coping capabilities. He has expressed a belief that over-emphasis of survivors' psychopathological reactions creates a distorted image of them, reducing their mental strength. [10]
Dissociation is a concept that has been developed over time and which concerns a wide array of experiences, ranging from a mild emotional detachment from the immediate surroundings, to a more severe disconnection from physical and emotional experiences. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality, rather than a false perception of reality as in psychosis.
Psychological trauma is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events that are outside the normal range of human experiences, with extreme examples being violence, rape, or a terrorist attack. The event must be understood by the affected person as directly threatening the affected person or their loved ones with death, severe bodily injury, or sexual violence; indirect exposure, such as from watching television news, may be extremely distressing and can produce an involuntary and possibly overwhelming physiological stress response, but does not produce trauma per se.
In psychology, emotional detachment, also known as emotional blunting, is a condition or state in which a person lacks emotional connectivity to others, whether due to an unwanted circumstance or as a positive means to cope with anxiety. Such a coping strategy, also known as emotion focused-coping, is used when avoiding certain situations that might trigger anxiety. It refers to the evasion of emotional connections. Emotional detachment may be a temporary reaction to a stressful situation, or a chronic condition such as depersonalization-derealization disorder. It may also be caused by certain antidepressants. Emotional blunting, also known as reduced affect display, is one of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
Reuven Feuerstein was a Romanian-born Israeli clinical, developmental, and cognitive psychologist, known for his theory of intelligence. Feuerstein is recognized for his work in developing the theories and applied systems of structural cognitive modifiability, mediated learning experience, cognitive map, deficient cognitive functions, learning propensity assessment device, instrumental enrichment programs, and shaping modifying environments. These interlocked practices provide educators with the skills and tools to systematically develop students’ cognitive functions and operations to build meta-cognition.
The trauma model of mental disorders, or trauma model of psychopathology, emphasises the effects of physical, sexual and psychological trauma as key causal factors in the development of psychiatric disorders, including depression and anxiety as well as psychosis, whether the trauma is experienced in childhood or adulthood. It conceptualises people as having understandable reactions to traumatic events rather than suffering from mental illness.
Childhood trauma is often described as serious adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Children may go through a range of experiences that classify as psychological trauma; these might include neglect, abandonment, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse, witnessing abuse of a sibling or parent, or having a mentally ill parent. These events have profound psychological, physiological, and sociological impacts and can have negative, lasting effects on health and well-being such as unsocial behaviors, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and sleep disturbances. Similarly, children whose mothers have experienced traumatic or stressful events during pregnancy have an increased risk of mental health disorders and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
Adult development encompasses the changes that occur in biological and psychological domains of human life from the end of adolescence until the end of one's life. Changes occur at the cellular level and are partially explained by biological theories of adult development and aging. Biological changes influence psychological and interpersonal/social developmental changes, which are often described by stage theories of human development. Stage theories typically focus on "age-appropriate" developmental tasks to be achieved at each stage. Erik Erikson and Carl Jung proposed stage theories of human development that encompass the entire life span, and emphasized the potential for positive change very late in life.
In psychology, posttraumatic growth (PTG) is positive psychological change experienced as a result of struggling with highly challenging, highly stressful life circumstances. These circumstances represent significant challenges to the adaptive resources of the individual, and pose significant challenges to the individual's way of understanding the world and their place in it. Posttraumatic growth involves "life-changing" psychological shifts in thinking and relating to the world and the self, that contribute to a personal process of change, that is deeply meaningful.
Yuval Neria is a Professor of Medical Psychology at the Departments of Psychiatry and Epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), and Director of Trauma and PTSD Program, and a Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) and Columbia University Department of Psychiatry. He is a recipient of the Medal of Valor, Israel's highest decoration, for his exploits during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Reuven Gal is an Israeli social and clinical psychologist, a social activist and entrepreneur, researcher, author and consultant in the field of behavioural, communal and social sciences.
Eva Fogelman is an American psychologist, writer, filmmaker and a pioneer in the treatment of psychological effects of the Holocaust on survivors and their descendants. She is the author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust and co-editor of Children During the Nazi Reign: Psychological Perspectives on the Interview Process. She is the writer and co-producer of the award-winning documentary Breaking the Silence: the Generation After the Holocaust and co-author of Children in the Holocaust and Its Aftermath: Historical and Psychological Studies of the Kestenberg Archive (2019).
Bob G. Knight, is the former associate dean of the USC Davis School of Gerontology, the Merle H. Bensinger Professor of Gerontology and Psychology and the director of the Tingstad Older Adult Counseling Center. He is best known for research and theory development on cross-cultural issues in stress and coping during family caregiving for dementia and also for theory and scholarship on adapting psychotherapy for work with older adults.
One of the most common ways that people cope with trauma is through the comfort found in religious or spiritual practices. Psychologists of religion have performed multiple studies to measure the positive and negative effects of this coping style. Leading researchers have split religious coping into two categories: positive religious coping and negative religious coping. Individuals who use positive religious coping are likely to seek spiritual support and look for meaning in a traumatic situation. Negative religious coping expresses conflict, question, and doubt regarding issues of God and faith.
Eli (Eliezer) Somer is an Israeli Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Haifa, School of Social Work. He is the former President of both the European Society for Trauma and Dissociation and the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, and serves as scientific advisor in Trauma and Dissociation Israel.
Paul T. P. Wong is a Canadian clinical psychologist and professor. His research career has gone through four stages, with significant contributions in each stage: learning theory, social cognition, existential psychology, and positive psychology. He is most known for his integrative work on death acceptance, meaning therapy, and second wave positive psychology. He has been elected as a fellow for both the American Psychological Association and the Canadian Psychological Association.
Dov Shmotkin is Professor Emeritus in the School of Psychological Sciences and Head of the Herczeg Institute on Aging at Tel Aviv University.
Jiska Cohen-Mansfield is the Igor Orenstein Chair for the Study of Geriatrics at Tel Aviv University Medical School and a professor at the Department of Health Promotion at the School of Public Health in the Sackler Medical Faculty at Tel Aviv University. She is the director of the Minerva Center for Interdisciplinary Study of End of Life at Tel-Aviv University.
Boaz Kahana is an American psychologist.
Social constraints are a psychological term that can be defined as "any social condition that causes a trauma survivor to feel unsupported, misunderstood, or otherwise alienated from their social network when they are seeking social support or attempting to express trauma-related thoughts, feelings, or concerns." Social constraints are most commonly defined as negative social interactions which make it difficult for an individual to speak about their traumatic experiences. The term is associated with the social-cognitive processing model, which is a psychological model describing ways in which individuals cope and come to terms with trauma they have experienced. Social constraints have been studied in populations of bereaved mothers, individuals diagnosed with cancer, and suicide-bereaved individuals. There is evidence of social constraints having negative effects on mental health. They have been linked to increased depressive symptoms as well as post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in individuals who have experienced traumatic events. There seems to be a positive association between social constraints and negative cognitions related to traumatic events. Social constraints have also been linked to difficulties in coping with illness in people who have been diagnosed with terminal illness such as cancer.
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