Perry London (June 18, 1931 - June 19, 1992) was an American-Israeli psychologist, theorist, and academic administrator best known for his writings on clinical psychology and his studies about altruism and hypnosis. In his last position, he was a professor of psychology and dean of the graduate school of applied and professional psychology at Rutgers University.
Perry London was born on June 18, 1931, to a Jewish family in Omaha, Nebraska. His parents, Max London (formerly Ladizhinski) and Rose Novoselsky London, immigrated from Russia in the early 20th century. He had two older sisters and one younger sister. After two years of public high school in Omaha, he moved to Yeshiva University High School in New York, where he graduated in 1948. During his Senior year in high school, he wrote his first academic article, which earned him a full college scholarship. Consequently, the article was published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. [1] In 1952 he graduated from Yeshiva College. He later earned a master's degree in psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University in 1953 and a Ph.D. in 1956. [2] He interned in 1954-1955 at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C.
After three years at Madigan Army Hospital in Tacoma, Washington, London joined the faculty of the department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, moving four years later to the University of Southern California (USC), where he was appointed Head of the Psychological Research and Training Institute. [3] During that time he joined NASA's space program as a consultant and helped screen the first cohort of American astronauts sent to space. After five years in that job, he was invited to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a Visiting Professor for the purpose of designing the research program for the newly created NCJW Center of Innovation in Education. During that year (1968–69) he was awarded a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) five-year Career Development Fellowship for promising young researchers, which freed him from all teaching and administrative responsibilities, enabling him and his family to divide their time between the US and Israel. London went back full time to USC in 1973 and moved to Israel in 1979, where he received teaching positions at Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University. During that period he also served as a consultant to the Israeli Air Force. He moved back to the US in 1983, becoming the director of the counseling and consulting psychology program at Harvard University. [1] In 1989, Prof. London responded to the call of the faculty of the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University and served as its Dean until his death in 1992. [2]
London published more than 150 articles and books on a range of subjects, comprising an ample intellectual heritage in clinical psychology as a theorist, empirical scientist, and teacher. His Modes and Morals of Psychotherapy (1964/1986) was the first cognitive account of the behavior therapies and remains a foundational text for modern students of the technologies and ethical implications of clinical psychology. In it London showed how therapeutic variety was essential to the field and not a “childhood disease” that would be overcome once one theory and approach was ultimately validated by research and came out victorious over all others. He was one of the first analysts of the therapeutic scene who argued that the most basic characteristic of a therapist might not be their theoretical allegiance, but their moral, interpersonal and existential stance. Later, London wrote and co-authored several articles (London, 1970, Omer & London 1988, 1989) describing how the field developed beyond its early focus on establishing which theory and therapy approach were true and right, into an understanding that theoretical ideologies and all-embracing theories were inadequate to explain therapeutic success. He showed how the field shifted its focus from theoretical purity to pragmatics, seeking to identify common factors that explained the effectiveness of different and even contrasting approaches, and special moments of change that could occur in similar ways in highly different kinds of therapy.
Behavior Control (1969) elaborated those themes. His Beginning Psychology (1975) was a highly accessible invitation to psychology, serving as an introductory text book. His writing was characterized by a conceptual perspective and an elegance of prose that made it memorable.
In his The Children’s Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (1963), London showed that hypnotibility is an individual characteristic, present in different people in different degrees. His scale enables therapists to identify who can benefit from hypnotherapy to treat pain, improve health and reduce anxiety.
At a time when self-reward was the leitmotif in psychology, London was a pioneer in the study of Christians who had risked their lives to save others—Jews, Gypsies, and American servicemen – during World War II. These rescuers endangered themselves, and often also their families including children, in many cases to save the lives of complete strangers. They hid them in basements and rooms behind walls and helped them escape to safer areas. London and his associates found that rescuers were often adventurous people, which helped them have the courage required for action. They were often marginal to their community, different from the people in the community in some way. They may have had one foreign parent, or were Catholics in a Protestant community, or had a personal characteristic that made them somewhat different (London, 1970). This does not mean that they were disconnected from other people, but this marginality enabled them to have a separate perspective.
When their community supported the Nazi persecution of Jews, they did not. One famous rescuer, Oscar Schindler, was marginal in that he was a German who lived in Czechoslovakia, a Protestant who married a Catholic woman from another village. Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved the lives of many Jews in Hungary, was marginal in that he was a member of a poor branch of a very rich family (Staub, 1989, 2015).
London and his associates could not continue their work, because no funding organization was willing to support them. They were told in the early 1960s that too much time had passed to get reliable information. However, the subsequent development of Holocaust studies would suggest that people at that time, including funders, were not yet ready to look at the horrors of that period. Indeed, much later, starting in the 1980s, a number of important articles and books appeared with the in-depth study of rescuers (for example, Oliner and Oliner, 1998).
London’s concern with the rescuers in the Holocaust led him to focus on the development of the willingness for altruistic and self-sacrificing behaviors in children. His research on this issue (Bryan and London, 1970) found that altruism and self-sacrifice seemed to develop independently of the social reinforcements that the child might receive for such behaviors. The only variable that was consistently found to help foster altruistic tendencies in children was a family atmosphere in which the parents encouraged and modeled the expression of empathic feelings. In contrast, a family atmosphere focusing on success and competition was found to hinder the child’s readiness for altruism and self-sacrifice.
In the last decade of his life, London studied and advised Jewish organizations on Jewish identity education, developing some of the principles that would evolve into Birthright, the organization that sponsors free educational trips to Israel for young adults of Jewish heritage.
A gifted writer known for his clear, straightforward, muscular prose, and a scholar with a strong Jewish and classical education, London had a sensitive ear for linguistic nuance and was an early critic of gender-bias in the English language. In an introductory note to his 1975 volume Beginning Psychology, he bluntly announced that he was going to use the gender-neutral “they” as a singular pronoun, whether the publisher or the readers liked it or not. “Some conventions of English grammar do not yet acknowledge women’s equality with men,” he wrote. “I wanted to change this without always resorting to second person or third person plural or clumsy singular constructions (“You should watch your grammar”; “people should watch their grammar”; “one should watch his or her grammar”). So I persuaded the Dorsey Press to let me use “their” as both singular and plural, the way it is often used colloquially (“A person should watch their grammar”). I am sorry if this offends grammatical purists, but I think this aspect of the language needs changing badly enough to risk their displeasure. Whether or not you think it a mistake, in any case, know that it is not an accident.”
London married Vivian Jacobson after entering graduate school. They had four daughters (Miriam London, Yael London, Shoshana London-Sappir and Debra London) before divorcing in 1977. London later married Beverly Rose. [2] He resided in Edison, New Jersey. He died on June 19, 1992, at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. [2]
Altruism is the principle and practice of concern for the well-being and/or happiness of other humans or animals. While objects of altruistic concern vary, it is an important moral value in many cultures and religions. It may be considered a synonym of selflessness, the opposite of selfishness.
Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.
Hypnotherapy is a type of mind–body intervention in which hypnosis is used to create a state of focused attention and increased suggestibility in the treatment of a medical or psychological disorder or concern.
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.
Suggestibility is the quality of being inclined to accept and act on the suggestions of others. One may fill in gaps in certain memories with false information given by another when recalling a scenario or moment. Suggestibility uses cues to distort recollection: when the subject has been persistently told something about a past event, his or her memory of the event conforms to the repeated message.
Clark Leonard Hull was an American psychologist who sought to explain learning and motivation by scientific laws of behavior. Hull is known for his debates with Edward C. Tolman. He is also known for his work in drive theory.
Andrew Salter was an American clinical psychologist who introduced behavior therapy, developed many of its conceptual foundations, and created numerous techniques still used today across its varied descendants, including cognitive behavioral therapy. His work in the early 1940s demystified hypnosis, interpreting it as a form of conditioning, now the widely accepted view. He was one of the founders of the Association for the Advancement of Behavioral Therapies, now the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. He maintained an active clinical practice in Manhattan until shortly before his death. His key ideas are documented in his book, Conditioned Reflex Therapy,, originally published in 1949 and reprinted many times, with a new edition published by Watkins Press in 2019. All citations from CRT refer to this edition.
Past life regression is a method that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations. The practice is widely considered discredited and unscientific by medical practitioners, and experts generally regard claims of recovered memories of past lives as fantasies or delusions or a type of confabulation. Past-life regression is typically undertaken either in pursuit of a spiritual experience, or in a psychotherapeutic setting. Most advocates loosely adhere to beliefs about reincarnation, though religious traditions that incorporate reincarnation generally do not include the idea of repressed memories of past lives.
Suggestion is the psychological process by which a person guides their own or another person's desired thoughts, feelings, and behaviors by presenting stimuli that may elicit them as reflexes instead of relying on conscious effort.
The development of concepts, beliefs and practices related to hypnosis and hypnotherapy have been documented since prehistoric to modern times.
Daniel David is a Romanian academic. He is "Aaron T. Beck" professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. He was the head of the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy of the Babeş-Bolyai University between 2007 and 2012. Daniel David is also an adjunct professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and is the head of the Research Program at Albert Ellis Institute in New York.
Martin Theodore Orne was a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Orne is best known for his pioneering research into demand characteristics, illustrating the weakness of informing participants that they are taking part in a psychology experiment and yet expecting them to act normally. He was well known as a researcher in the field of hypnosis and is also noted for his involvement with the poet Anne Sexton, and with the trials of Patty Hearst and Kenneth Bianchi.
Theodore Roy Sarbin (1911–2005) was an American psychologist and professor of psychology and criminology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was known as "Mr. Role Theory" because of his contributions to the social psychology of role-taking.
André Muller Weitzenhoffer was one of the most prolific researchers in the field of hypnosis in the latter half of the 20th century, having authored over 100 publications between 1949 and 2004. He was the recipient of several professional and academic awards, including the Distinguished Contributions to Scientific Hypnosis Award of the American Psychological Association in 1992.
Etzel Cardeña is the Thorsen Professor of Psychology at Lund University, Sweden where he is Director of the Centre for Research on Consciousness and Anomalous Psychology (CERCAP). He has served as President of the Society of Psychological Hypnosis, and the Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis. He is the current editor of the Journal of Parapsychology. He has expressed views in favour of open scientific enquiry and the validity of some paranormal phenomena. The Parapsychological Association honored Cardeña with the 2013 Charles Honorton Integrative Contributions Award. His publications include the books Altering Consciousness and Varieties of Anomalous Experience.
Irving Kirsch is an American psychologist and academic. He is the Associate Director of the Program in Placebo Studies and a lecturer in medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is also professor emeritus of psychology at the Universities of Hull and Plymouth in the United Kingdom, and the University of Connecticut in the United States. Kirsch is a leading researcher within the field of placebo studies who is noted for his work on placebo effects, antidepressants, expectancy, and hypnosis. He is the originator of response expectancy theory, and his analyses of clinical trials of antidepressants have influenced official treatment guidelines in the United Kingdom. He is the author of the 2009 book The Emperor's New Drugs, which argued most antidepressant medication is effective primarily due to placebo effects.
Wynn R. Schwartz is an American clinical and experimental psychologist, research psychoanalyst, best known for his work on the Person Concept and his contributions to Descriptive psychology.
Theodore Xenophon Barber (1927–2005) was an American psychologist who researched and wrote on the subject of hypnosis, publishing over 200 articles and eight books on that and related topics. He was the chief psychologist at Cushing Hospital, Framingham, Massachusetts, from 1978 to 1986. Barber was a noted critic of the field of hypnosis, questioning the ways in which the concept of hypnosis had been used as an umbrella term for diverse phenomena. Barber was one of the first two prominent anglophone psychologists, along with Theodore Sarbin, to question the "altered-state model" of "state model" of hypnosis, arguing that the varied phenomena labeled "hypnosis" could be explained without resorting to the notion of an altered state of consciousness.
Michael D. Yapko is a clinical psychologist and author, whose work is focused on the areas of treating depression, developing brief psychotherapies and advancing the clinical applications of hypnosis.
Paul Raymond Gilbert is a British clinical psychologist. Gilbert is the founder of compassion focused therapy (CFT), compassionate mind training (CMT) and the author of books such as The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life's Challenges and Overcoming Depression.
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