Norman Farberow facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Norman Farberow
Farberow at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services' Survivors After ... event in Culver City, California, June 27, 2009
Born	Norman Louis Farberow (1918-02-12)February 12, 1918 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	September 10, 2015(2015-09-10) (aged 97) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles
Known for	A founding father of modern suicidology
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology Suicidology
Influences	Karl Menninger

Norman Louis Farberow (February 12, 1918 – September 10, 2015) was an American psychologist, and one of the founding fathers of modern suicidology. He was among the three founders in 1958 of the Los Angeles ... Prevention Center, which became a base of research into the causes and prevention of ....

Early life and education

He was born in 1918 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

After completing his tour of duty in World War II, Farberow enrolled in the University of California, Los Angeles. ..... With few relevant references to draw upon for his 1949 dissertation, Farberow saw the potential for reawakening “interest in a long-neglected, taboo-encrusted social and personal phenomenon.” Farberow earned his doctoral degree from UCLA in 1950 while working with veterans in the Veterans Administration Mental Hygiene Clinic. .....

World War II

Farberow served as a World War II Air Force Captain. .....

Career

..... Wrenching social and personal readjustments were often needed, and these needs were further complicated by the emotional distress and mental health problems of returning veterans. .....

Farberow saw the effects of these dynamics and how they compounded the misery of those who were suffering.

.....

Other cultural influences

Indirect self-destructive behavior

As part of his activity in the Central Research Unit for the Study of Unpredicted Death (CRU for SUD) in the Veterans Administration, Farberow identified and characterized his observations of indirect self-destructive behavior, or ISDB, and described a broad range of behaviors ranging from “slight to extreme, from mild smoking to noncompliant medical neglect, from risk-taking, excitement-seeking, depression-averting, denial-mediated aspects of ... addiction to dare-devil flaunting of fate in chasm jumping on a motorcycle.” Farberow considered this body of work integral to understanding the continuum of self-destructive behavior, which he carefully researched and documented in what he called his labor of love, a book entitled The Many Faces of ....

Models for group therapy

For the bereaved

..... As a result, they are often excluded from the comfort and support traditionally offered by family, friends and community at the time of a death. This survivor population required a new approach to group therapy: these were not patients seeking to explore conflicts and problems with a therapist trained in traditional models.

..... The LASPC introduced this new model in the 1980s and identified two major aspects:

• Meetings would be led by a mental health professional and a survivor facilitator, and
• Meetings would be limited to eight weeks with monthly follow-ups for those that wish it.

They determined the meetings would focus on caring, sharing, support, and interactive discussion—not conflict identification and resolution, aspects typically addressed in traditional group therapy.

The model for the Survivors After ... program quickly grew in the United States and Canada. ..... The establishment of the international Farberow Award in the IASP (see below) has helped this therapeutic model gain universal acceptance.

International collaboration

..... The following year, Ringel visited the LASPC and invited Farberow to share his vision. In its infancy, the concept of a new global organization underwent “a classic clash of American vs. European ideas of how an Association was structured.” Farberow wrote, “My approach reflected my experience in U.S. psychology governance while his approach reflected his experience in an autocratic university and European associations.” The commitment to argue through and resolve these issues resulted in a global organization that constitutes an important part of Farberow's professional legacy, the International Association for ... Prevention (IASP). .....

Overview

..... When Farberow collected citations for a second bibliography nine years later, the number had surged to roughly one hundred per year.

..... Farberow examined the shifting nature of risk within a variety of subgroups, including police officers, gay men, the obese, schizophrenics and other psychiatric patients. youth, adolescents, the aged, and the chronically and terminally ill. ..... His work broadened to include crisis intervention with the publication of guidelines for human service and child health care workers in large-scale natural disasters.

Throughout his career, Farberow was prolific in publishing his observations, research findings, and clinical insights. He wrote 16 books, 50 chapters, 93 articles, three monographs, four manuals, three brochures, 13 book reviews, six forewords, three Veterans Administration Medical Bulletins, and one module. His books and articles have been translated into Japanese, Finnish, German, Swedish, French, Spanish, and Korean. He edited, contributed to, and consulted with many periodicals over the years and remains active with six.

Personal life and death

Farberow married Pearl (1925–2008), a teacher and counselor. They had a son and a daughter. .....

Selected works

• Farberow, N. L., & Shneidman, E. S. (Eds.) (1961). The Cry for Help. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company; (Japanese Translation) Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1968; (Spanish Translation) Mexico City: La Presna Medica Mexicana, 1969.
• Shneidman, E. S., & Farberow, N. L. (Eds.) (1957). ..... New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company; (Japanese Translation) Tokyo: Seishin Shobo Company, 1968.
• Farberow, N. L. (Ed.) (1980). ..... New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
• Evans, G., & Farberow, N. L. (1988). ..... New York: Facts on File Publishing Co.
• Farberow, N. L. (Ed.) (1975). ..... Baltimore, MD: University Park Press, 286 p.
• Reynolds, D. K., & Farberow, N. L. (1976). ..... Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 226 p.
• Reynolds, D. K., & Farberow, N. L. (1977). Endangered Hope: Experience in Psychiatric Aftercare Facilities. Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 184 p.
• Reynolds, D. K., & Farberow, N. L. (1981). Family Shadow. Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 177 p.
• Farberow, N. L., & Gordon, N. (1981). Manual for Child Health Workers in Major Disasters. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, DHHS Publication No. (ADM) 81–1070.
• Maida, K., Gordon, N., & Farberow, N. L. (1989). The Crisis of Competence. Transitional Stress and the Displaced Worker. New York: Brunner-Mazell.
• Shneidman, E. S., Farberow, N. L., & Litman, R. E. (1994). ..... Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc.