Lazarus, Arnold A.

I was born on January 27, 1932, in Johannesburg, South Africa. The youngest of four children, I attended the University of the Witwatersrand, where I majored in psychology and sociology and went on to receive a PhD in clinical psychology in 1960. I went into full-time private practice and was a part-time lecturer at the Witwatersrand Medical School in Johannesburg.

In 1963, I accepted an invitation from the Department of Psychology at Stanford University and joined their faculty as a visiting assistant professor. With my wife, Daphne (whom I married in 1956), I journeyed to California with our two children, Linda, then aged 4, and Clifford, aged 2. We all returned to South Africa in 1964, where I returned to my private practice and part-time teaching position. With my nuclear family, I subsequently immigrated to the United States in 1966, when I was appointed director of the Behavior Therapy Institute in Sausalito, California. In 1967, I joined the faculty of Temple University Medical School as a full professor. In 1970 to 1972, I was a visiting professor at Yale University and director of Clinical Training, and in 1972, I accepted an offer from Rutgers University, where I received the rank of distinguished professor of psychology. I taught there from 1972 to 1998 and then retired as a distinguished professor emeritus of psychology. In addition to my private practice, I now work with my son, Clifford N. Lazarus, PhD, director of Comprehensive Psychological Services in Princeton, New Jersey. Father and son are also developing a Center for Multimodal Psychological Services.

As former president of several professional associations and societies, I have received many honors and awards for my contributions to clinical theory and therapy. These include the Distinguished Psychologist Award from American Psychological Association's (APA) Division of Psychotherapy, the Distinguished Professional Contributions Award from APA's Division of Clinical Psychology, the Distinguished Service Award from the American Board of Professional Psychology, and two Lifetime Achievement Awards, one from the California Psychological Association and the other from the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy. I am also the recipient of the first Annual Cummings PSYCHE Award. This honor, in addition to a $50,000 tax-free prize, included a bronze statue of the Greek goddess Psyche and a large framed calligraphy certificate outlining my many contributions. I have been inducted, as a charter member, into the National Academies of Practice as a Distinguished Practitioner in Psychology.

With 18 books and more than 300 professional and scientific articles to my credit, I am widely recognized as an international authority on effective and efficient psychotherapy and have given innumerable talks and workshops both here and abroad. In addition to my academic and scholarly activities, as a licensed psychologist and a diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology, I have maintained an active psychotherapy practice since 1959.

I coined the terms “behavior therapy” and “behavior therapist,” which first appeared in a professional publication in 1958, and went on to innovate and develop many behavior therapy techniques. Professor Cyril M.[Page 356]Franks, who founded the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, described my broad-based, multimodal orientation as “behavior therapy in one of its most advanced forms.”

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