Bertram Cohler
Bertram Joseph Cohler | |
|---|---|
| Born | 3 December 1938 |
| Died | 9 May 2012 (Aged 73) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | psychoanalyst, psychologist |
| Institutions | University of Chicago, Harvard University, Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School |
| Part of a series of articles on |
| Psychoanalysis |
|---|
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Bertram Joseph Cohler (3 December 1938 – 9 May 2012) was an American psychologist, psychoanalyst, and educator primarily associated with the University of Chicago and Harvard University. He advocated a life-course approach to understanding human experience and subjectivity, drawing on insights from psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, psychological anthropology, narrative studies, and the interdisciplinary field of human development.[1] He contributed particularly to the study of sexual identity over the life course[2] and to the psychoanalytic understanding of homosexuality.[3]
Early life & Education
Bertram Joseph Cohler was born 3 December 1938 to Theresa Belle "Betty" Cohler (née Cahn) and Jonas Robert Cohler.[4] His siblings were Jonas Robert Cohler, Jr., and Betsy Cohler.[5] At one point, he was a student at the Orthogenic School, a residential treatment center for children with emotional disturbances; years later he became its director and was interviewed as one of its most successful graduates.[6]
Cohler received his B.A. from the University of Chicago in 1961. He then studied at Harvard University in the Department of Social Relations, an interdisciplinary collaboration among the departments of psychology, sociology, and anthropology. As a graduate student he assisted with coding and analysis of data from the Six Cultures Study under John and Beatrice Whiting. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard in 1967, and returned to Chicago, where he trained in adult psychoanalysis at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.
Career
In 1969, he began working at the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School. Following the retirement of Bruno Bettelheim in 1973, Cohler became director of the school.[7]
During his tenure at the University of Chicago, Cohler won multiple teaching awards, including the Quantrell Award[8] for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 1972 and 1999 and the Norman Maclean Faculty Award for enriching student life in 2006.[5] He was named William Rainey Harper Professor in Comparative Human Development and the College, with affiliations in the Department of Comparative Human Development and in the Department of Psychology.
He served on the first steering committee of Division 39 of the American Psychological Association, (the Division of Psychoanalysis).[9] and received the APA's Henry A. Murray Award in 2007.[10]
In his research, Cohler attended to the evolution of identity and experience of self over the life span, with insights from psychoanalysis, particularly Heinz Kohut, and the psychological study of development including the work of Lev Vygotsky.[11]
Books
- Cohler, B J., H. U. Grunebaum, and D. M. Robbins. (1981) Mothers, grandmothers, and daughters: personality and child care in three-generation families. New York: Wiley.
- Galatzer-Levy, R. M. and B. J. Cohler (1994). The essential other: a developmental psychology of the self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Cohler, B. J. and R. M. Galatzer-Levy (2000). The course of gay and lesbian lives: social and psychoanalytic perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Cohler, B. J. (2007). Writing desire: sixty years of gay autobiography. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Edited Books
- Anthony, J. E. and B. J. Cohler (1987) The Invulnerable child. New York: Guilford Press.
- Field, K., B. J. Cohler, and G. Wool. (1989) Learning and education: psychoanalytic perspectives. Madison, CT: International Universities Press.
- Cohler, B. J. and P. L. Hammack. (2009) The story of sexual identity: Narrative perspectives on the gay and lesbian life course. New York: Oxford University Press.
Selected Articles & Chapters
- Cohler, B. J. (1977). "Some problems in the study of aging and death." Human Development 20(4): 210-216.
- Boxer, A. M. and B. J. Cohler (1989). "The life course of gay and lesbian youth: an immodest proposal for the study of lives." J Homosex 17(3-4): 315-355.
- Cohler, B. J. and M. J. Jenuwine (1995). "Suicide, life course, and life story." Int Psychogeriatr 7(2): 199-219.
- Cohler, B. J. (1996). "Psychic reality and the analyst: the inner working of the analyst's mind." Int J Psychoanal 77 ( Pt 1): 89-95.
- Cohler, B., Hammack, P. (2006). "Making a gay identity: Life-story and the construction of a coherent self." In. D.P. McAdams, R. Josselson and A. Lieblich (Eds). Identity and story: Crafting self in narrative. Washington DC: The American Psychological Association, 151-17.
- Cohler B., Galatzer-Levy, R. (2006). Love in the classroom: Desire and transference in teaching and learning. In. Boldt, G.M., Salvo, P.M. (Eds.) Love's return: Psychoanalytic essays on teaching and learning. New York: Routledge, 243-26.
- Cohler, B., Smith, G. (2006). Cultural dilemmas of masculinity. In. Bedford, V.H. and B.F. Turner (Eds.) Men in relationships: A new look from a life-course perspective. New York: Springer Publishing Company, 3-2.
- Cohler, B., Hammack, P. (2006). The psychological world of the gay teenager: Social change and the issue of "Normality," The Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36, 47-5.
- Cohler, B., Hostetler, A. (2007). Gay lives in the third age. In. P. Wink and J. James (Eds.) The crown of life: Dynamics of the early post-retirement period. New York: Springer Publishing Company, 263-28.
- Cohler, B., Galatzer-Levy, R.(2007) What kind of a science is psychoanalysis? Psychoanalytic Inquiry (Special Issue: Psychoanalysis and science (Ed. M. Bornstein), 27, 547-58.
- Cohler, B.(2008). Nostalgia and the disappointment with modernity: Memory books as adaptive response to Shoah. In. W. Parsons, D. Jonte-Pace, and S. Henking (Eds.) Mourning religion. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 201-22.
- Cohler, B. (2008). Two lives, two times: Life-writing after Shoah, Narrative Inquiry, 18, 1-2.
See also
References
- ^ Bertaux, D., and M. Kohli (1984) The Life Story Approach: A Continental View. Annual Review of Sociology, 10: 215-237.
- ^ van Eeden-Moorefield, Brad (2010) Review of The story of sexual identity: Narrative perspectives on the gay and lesbian life course. Journal of Marriage and Family. Vol 72(5), Oct 2010, pp. 1460-1462
- ^ Roughton, Ralph E. (2002). Rethinking Homosexuality: What it Teaches us about Psychoanalysis. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 50:733-763
- ^ Obituary: Bertram Joseph Cohler, from Tributes.com
- ^ a b Obituary: Jonas Robert Cohler, Jr., from the Chicago Tribune, 2011 Cite error: The named reference "Obituary: Jonas Robert Cohler, Jr., from the Chicago Tribune" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ The Strange Case of Dr. B, from the New York Review of Books, 27 Feb 2003
- ^ Solving The Puzzle That Was Bruno Bettelheim, from the Chicago Tribune, 1990
- ^ Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis: History
- ^ http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/call-for-nominations-for-the-henry-a-murray-award-5DUsrUVvf8 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- ^ Galatzer-Levy, R. M. and B. J. Cohler (1994). The essential other: a developmental psychology of the self. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
External links
