Arnold A. Lazarus

Arnold Allan Lazarus (born January 27, 1932 in Johannesburg , † October 1, 2013 in Princeton , New Jersey ) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist , professor of psychology at Rutgers University and the founder of multimodal behavioral therapy .

Life

Arnold Allan Lazarus grew up in South Africa and studied at the University of Witwatersrand with Joseph Wolpe, among others . In 1956 he received his bachelor's degree and in 1957 his master's degree in experimental psychology. In addition to supervising a practice for psychotherapy , which he opened in 1959, he continued his studies and received his Ph. D. in clinical psychology in 1960 . In 1963 he spent a year as an assistant professor at Stanford University, California, and then returned to the University of Witwatersrand for two years.

In 1966 he became director of the Behavioral Therapy Institute in Sausalito , California. Along with Joseph Wolpe, he published a book on behavioral techniques ( Behavior therapy techniques , 1966). A year later he took on a visiting professorship at Temple University in Philadelphia, where Joseph Wolpe now taught as a professor.

In contrast to Wolpe, Lazarus adopted an increasingly liberal stance towards forms of therapy that were not solely committed to classical behaviorism . In Lazarus' opinion, an effective therapy should consider all empirically proven techniques, regardless of their origin, and apply them in a targeted manner. About this “technical eclecticism ” there were differences and finally a break with Wolpe.

From 1970 to 1972 Lazarus worked at the University of Yale . In 1972 he received his clinical diploma from the American Board of Professional Psychology and initially set up a private practice in Princeton, New Jersey. A short time later he was appointed professor at Rutgers University there, where he taught and researched until his retirement . Even after leaving the university, Lazarus continued to work as a therapist in his own practice.

power

Lazarus' Multimodal Behavior Therapy, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy , was first published as a book in 1976 under the title Multimodal Behavior Therapy . It describes seven different, mutually dependent areas of life = modalities ( behavior, affect, sensation, imagery, cognition, interpersonal relations, drugs ). In therapy, interventions usually take place in several modalities, each one tailored to the individual's problems. The basis for all psychotherapeutic efforts is the therapist-client relationship with Lazarus as well . Lazarus founded several “Multimodal Therapy Institutes”, the first in 1976 in Kingston, New Jersey, and later in New York, Illinois, Texas and Ohio.

Arnold Lazarus has received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Service Award from the American Board of Professional Psychology and the Distinguished Psychologist Award from the American Psychological Society (1992). In 1996 he was the first to receive the prestigious “Psyche Award” from the Cummings Foundation.

Lazarus was the author and co-author of around 15 books and over 200 specialist articles in magazines and edited volumes. With some of his books he tried to make his therapeutic knowledge accessible to the interested layperson in an easily understandable form. He published two of these books together with his son Clifford Neil Lazarus, who is also a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist.

Works (selection of German editions)

• Add. with Clifford N. Lazarus: The little pocket therapist. Ok again in 60 seconds Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2006 (1st edition 1999), ISBN 978-3-423-34315-2
• Add. with Clifford N. Lazarus a. Allen Fay: Pitfalls of Life. Forty rules that make life hell and how we overcome them . dtv, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-423-36215-4
• Zus, with Allen Fay: I can if I want. Instructions for psychological self-help . dtv, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-423-08551-7
• Interior pictures. Imagination in therapy and as self-help . 3. verb. Edition. Pfeiffer at Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-608-89612-0
• Pitfalls of love. twenty-four errors about life as a couple . dtv, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-423-36185-9
• Practice of multimodal therapy . Dgvt, Tübingen 1995, ISBN 3-87159-125-4
• Multimodal short psychotherapy . dtv, Munich 2001, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-608-91986-4

Web links

• Literature by and about Arnold A. Lazarus in the catalog of the German National Library
• Rudolf Sponsel: Brief (professional) biography from the past and present of general and integrative psychotherapy. Gain.
• Margaret Alic: Lazarus, Arnold Allan . In: Encyclopedia of Psychology.
• Rutgers University - Arnold A. Lazarus