Dr. Barbara Held Honored for Work

Barbara S. Held, PhD, is the 2012 recipient of the $10,000 APF Joseph B. Gittler Award in recognition of the most scholarly contributions to the philosophical foundations of psychological knowledge.

Dr. Held is the Barry N. Wish Professor of Psychology and Social Studies at Bowdoin College. Her work critiques theories and philosophies of movements in psychology and advances a realist epistemology and philosophical study of human/mental kinds. Her scholarly books include "Back to Reality: A Critique of Postmodern Theory in Psychotherapy" (1995) and "Psychology's Interpretive Turn: The Search for Truth and Agency in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology" (2007). In "Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching" (2001) and subsequent publications, including her co-edited book "Humanity's Dark Side: Evil, Destructive Experience, and Psychotherapy" (2012), she challenges many tenets of the positive psychology movement.

"This award is a tremendous honor amplified by its previous winners, Daniel Robinson, Louis Sass, Daniel Kahneman and Jerome Buner. We all owe thanks to Dr. Gittler for recognizing the important work of philosophical psychologists," says Held.

The Gittler award was established by a generous bequest from Dr. Joseph B. Gittler, a sociologist by training who received a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1941. For more than 60 years, he was a member of the faculty at many leading universities in this country and abroad.