Reflections on a Scholarly Career

 

Reflections on a Scholarly Career

 

            The only career I remember planning as a child was farming. My aunt had a small farm with one cow, half a dozen breeding sows and 300 or so chickens. I loved visiting the farm in Norfolk and helping out with the chores – collecting eggs, putting the broody hens in a pen, mucking out he piglets, etc. I subscribed to Pig Farmer, and I bought a book on how to turn 500 acres of scrub land into a farm. I still remember that the Landrace pig (a Danish pig) has an extra rib, and so you get more meat.

 

            I was never very good at physics and chemistry at the age of 15, but then the two old codgers who taught those classes retired, and two younger teachers took over. I excelled. At the age of 16, in England, you specialize. All my classes thereafter were in physics, chemistry and mathematics. King’s College was interested only in sending the students to Oxbridge, and I got a major scholarship to St. John’s College at Cambridge University. Rather than idling for six months waiting to go, I persuaded my peers to study more mathematics before we arrived at Cambridge University. At Cambridge, I dropped chemistry and studied physics and mathematics – nothing else. Part 1 of my BA was in physics and mathematics, the equivalent of a BA here in the USA.

 

            I wanted to be the next Albert Einstein.

 

            I’ve described above why I switched to psychology. The result has always been a disappointment. The social sciences are not the natural sciences, and psychology is not physics. I’ve never taken psychology seriously. I think, if I had remained in physics and obtained my PhD and become a researcher, I would have published perhaps 30 or 40 papers, as my college roommate, Leslie, did. (He was an astrophysicist.) Instead, I have over 2,600 scholar articles, note, chapters and books in the social sciences. It’s not really enough to match 30 good physics papers.

 

            Serendipitously, I become interested in suicide, and I was allowed to choose that for my PhD thesis. I have become one of the world’s most foremost suicidologists. But, even that is not my main interest. I like theories of the mind (called Theories of Personality in psychology curricula). After teaching that course for many years, I went back and re-read the major theorists in the field and devised my own textbook and course. Later, I developed my own theory of the mind, published in two books and several articles. I think I am most pleased with that work even though it will never become a “major” theory of personality. It is odd to note that that topic was not taught by the psychology program at Cambridge (which focused on experimental psychology – learning, physiological psychology, and perception).

 

            I wanted to be the next Sigmund Freud. No chance!

 

            Because I could never take psychology seriously, and because I was tenured and a full professor at Richard Stockton State College at the age of 33, I could have fun as a scholar. I could write a note or a paper on whatever topic I liked, publish in any journal I liked, and say whatever I like. I’ve written on preventing suicide and assisting suicide. I used one case (by Ludwig Binswanger, an existential psychiatrist) to argue for suicide as a good death in one article and to accuse Binswanger of psychic murder (getting rid of a difficult patient by letting her die by suicide) in another article.

 

            I’ve written some good papers and books, cited by hundreds (and in one case thousands). Since I read everything on suicide from 1897 on, I have published on suicide from an anthropological, psychological, sociological, psychiatric, criminal justice, feminist, religion, etc perspective. I see myself in some ways as a creative, scholarly opportunist.

 

            But, I wonder. What if I had applied those same scholarly and creative skills to theoretical physics? What could I have achieved in that field? I’ll never know. My psychotherapist back in 1985 said that I would have benefited by counseling back in 1962., counseling to stay in physics.

 

            Of course, if I had, then perhaps I would not have emigrated to the United States, met Bijou, and ended up cruising the world in comfort.