Jefferson Fish
Encyclopedia
Jefferson M. Fish is a professor emeritus of psychology
at St. John's University in New York City
, where he previously served as Chair of the Department of Psychology and as Director of the PhD Program in Clinical Psychology.
Fish was born in Manhattan
in 1942, the grandson of Eastern Europe
an Jewish immigrants. After spending his internship year—1966-1967, the height of the hippie
era—at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute
in San Francisco, he returned to New York to complete his studies during the Columbia riots
. He received his PhD in clinical psychology
from Columbia University
and was a postdoctoral fellow at the State University of New York at Stony Brook
.
Although Fish had begun graduate school with the intention of becoming a psychoanalyst, he did a Rogerian
PhD dissertation, followed by a postdoctoral program in behavior therapy. It was during his postdoctoral year that he developed his interests in hypnosis
, placebo
, and paradoxical interventions (also known as therapeutic double-binds
)—leading ultimately to his involvement with family therapy
. In his clinical books and articles Fish viewed therapy as a social influence process, and drew on social psychology
, sociology
and anthropology
—-in addition to clinical psychology, psychiatry
, and social work
—-as sources for ideas and empirical evidence.
At Stony Brook, Fish met his wife, the African American anthropologist Dolores Newton, who had just returned from her second stint of field work with the Krikati Indians in Brazil
. Married in 1970, the couple spent the years 1974-1976 as visiting professors in Brazil—including a month with the Krikati. It was there that Fish developed his interests in Brazil, languages, the relationship between psychology and anthropology, cross-cultural psychology
, and the concept of race in different cultures. He contributed a panel comparing the concept of race in Brazil and the United States
to the American Anthropological Association
's exhibit Race: Are We So Different?
Fish is the author or editor of 11 books, and well over 100 journal articles, book chapters and other works. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association
and of the Association for Psychological Science
, and is board certified in Clinical Psychology and in Couple and Family Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology
. He served in a variety of roles on local, national, and international psychology organizations and drug policy
organizations, and on the editorial board
s of eight psychology journals in the United States, Brazil, and India
.
as a social influence
process, on social and cultural factors in therapy, and on brief therapy
--including brief behavioral, cognitive
, strategic, systemic
, and solution focused
therapies,
and on the use of hypnosis
in brief therapy. In Placebo Therapy, for example, Fish argued that stimulating the client's positive expectancy of change was a primary source of the effectiveness of therapy. Hence, rather than attempting
to minimize or control for the placebo effect, therapy should be structured so as to
maximize it. Patrick Pentony's Models of Influence in Psychotherapy presented
Fish's placebo model as one of only three models of influence underlying the numerous systems of psychotherapy. (The other two are the resocialization model and the contextual model). Fish's book also stimulated Irving Kirsch's
research on
response expectancy theory, in which people's experience—such as becoming calmer or happier—is affected by what they expect to experience.
his writings have dealt mainly with comparing and contrasting the race concept in a variety of cultures, the race-IQ debate, and Brazil. Contrary to the folk view of race as a fixed biological phenomenon, Fish argues that people can change their race simply by traveling from one culture to another. What changes is not what they look like, or their genes, or ancestry, but rather the set of cultural categories (folk taxonomy) each culture uses to classify them. Fish's article Mixed Blood, comparing the American and Brazilian conceptions of race, has been anthologized by various disciplines, including history and anthropology. Fish was a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil and China
. He speaks Portuguese, French, Spanish, and German.
, and to promoting consideration of a wide range of policy alternatives to the War on Drugs
. He has served as Adjunct Coordinator of the Committee on Drugs and the Law of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; and his broadening the discussion of policy alternatives has had an impact on debates in legal and policy circles.
blog is Looking in the Cultural Mirror.
influence in psychotherapy. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Fish, J. M. (1976). Dimensões da empatia terapêutica. Campinas, São
Paulo, Brazil: Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas. (Dimensions of
therapeutic empathy. Published in Portuguese.)
Pfafflin, S. M., Sechzer, J. A., Fish, J. M., & Thompson, R. L. (Eds.).
(1990). Psychology: Perspectives and Practice. New York City, NY: New
York Academy of Sciences. (Annals, Vol. 602)
Fish, J. M. (1996). Culture and therapy: An integrative approach.
Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (1998). How to legalize drugs. Northvale, NJ: Jason
Aronson.
Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (2000). Is our drug policy effective? Are there
alternatives? New York City, NY: Fordham Urban Law Journal. (Proceedings
of the March 17 & 18, 2000 joint conference of the New York Academy of
Sciences, New York Academy of Medicine, and Association of the Bar of the
City of New York. Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 3–262.)
Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (2002). Race and intelligence: Separating science from myth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gielen, U. P., Fish, J. M. & Draguns, J. G. (Eds.) (2004). Handbook of culture, therapy, and healing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (2006). Drugs and society: U. S. public policy.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Gielen, U. P., Draguns, J. G., & Fish, J. M. (Eds.) (2008). Principles of multicultural counseling and therapy. New York: Routledge.
Fish, J. M. (2011). The concept of race and psychotherapy. New York:
Springer Science + Business Media.
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
at St. John's University in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he previously served as Chair of the Department of Psychology and as Director of the PhD Program in Clinical Psychology.
Fish was born in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in 1942, the grandson of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an Jewish immigrants. After spending his internship year—1966-1967, the height of the hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
era—at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute
Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute
The Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute is part of the Psychiatry Department at UCSF, one of the most highly regarded medical universities in the United States. Langley Porter is the oldest facility in the Psychiatry Department, and was the first psychiatric institute in California.It was...
in San Francisco, he returned to New York to complete his studies during the Columbia riots
Columbia University protests of 1968
The Columbia University protests of 1968 were among the many student demonstrations that occurred around the world in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United...
. He received his PhD in clinical psychology
Clinical psychology
Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development...
from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and was a postdoctoral fellow at the State University of New York at Stony Brook
State University of New York at Stony Brook
The State University of New York at Stony Brook, also known as Stony Brook University, is a public research university located in Stony Brook, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island, about east of Manhattan....
.
Although Fish had begun graduate school with the intention of becoming a psychoanalyst, he did a Rogerian
Carl Rogers
Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...
PhD dissertation, followed by a postdoctoral program in behavior therapy. It was during his postdoctoral year that he developed his interests in hypnosis
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
, placebo
Placebo
A placebo is a simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment for a disease or other medical condition intended to deceive the recipient...
, and paradoxical interventions (also known as therapeutic double-binds
Double bind
A double bind is an emotionally distressing dilemma in communication in which an individual receives two or more conflicting messages, in which one message negates the other. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other , so that...
)—leading ultimately to his involvement with family therapy
Family therapy
Family therapy, also referred to as couple and family therapy, family systems therapy, and family counseling, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of...
. In his clinical books and articles Fish viewed therapy as a social influence process, and drew on social psychology
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
, sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
and anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
—-in addition to clinical psychology, psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
, and social work
Social work
Social Work is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or...
—-as sources for ideas and empirical evidence.
At Stony Brook, Fish met his wife, the African American anthropologist Dolores Newton, who had just returned from her second stint of field work with the Krikati Indians in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. Married in 1970, the couple spent the years 1974-1976 as visiting professors in Brazil—including a month with the Krikati. It was there that Fish developed his interests in Brazil, languages, the relationship between psychology and anthropology, cross-cultural psychology
Cross-cultural psychology
Cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental process, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions...
, and the concept of race in different cultures. He contributed a panel comparing the concept of race in Brazil and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to the American Anthropological Association
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 11,000 members, the Arlington, Virginia based association includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic...
's exhibit Race: Are We So Different?
Fish is the author or editor of 11 books, and well over 100 journal articles, book chapters and other works. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
and of the Association for Psychological Science
Association for Psychological Science
The Association for Psychological Science , previously the American Psychological Society, is a non-profit international organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of...
, and is board certified in Clinical Psychology and in Couple and Family Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology
American Board of Professional Psychology
The American Board of Professional Psychology was formed in 1947 and was originally known as the American Board of Examiners in Professional Psychology...
. He served in a variety of roles on local, national, and international psychology organizations and drug policy
Drug policy
A drug policy most often refers to a government's attempt to combat the negative effects of drug addiction and misuse in its society. Governments try to combat drug addiction with policies which address both the demand and supply of drugs, as well as policies which can mitigate the harms of drug...
organizations, and on the editorial board
Editorial board
The editorial board is a group of people, usually at a publication, who dictate the tone and direction the publication's editorial policy will take.- Board makeup :...
s of eight psychology journals in the United States, Brazil, and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
Clinical psychology
Fish has written widely on psychotherapyPsychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
as a social influence
Social influence
Social influence occurs when an individual's thoughts, feelings or actions are affected by other people. Social influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, sales, and marketing...
process, on social and cultural factors in therapy, and on brief therapy
Brief therapy
Brief psychotherapy or Brief therapy is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches to psychotherapy. It differs from other schools of therapy in that it emphasises a focus on a specific problem and direct intervention...
--including brief behavioral, cognitive
Cognitive therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a psychotherapeutic approach: a talking therapy. CBT aims to solve problems concerning dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic procedure in the present...
, strategic, systemic
Systemic Therapy
Systemic therapy is a form of psychotherapy which seeks to address people not on individual level, as had been the focus of earlier forms of therapy, but as people in relationship, dealing with the interactions of groups and their interactional patterns and dynamics.- History :Systemic therapy has...
, and solution focused
Solution focused brief therapy
Solution focused brief therapy , often referred to as simply 'solution focused therapy' or 'brief therapy', is a type of talking therapy that is based upon social constructionist philosophy. It focuses on what clients want to achieve through therapy rather than on the problem that made them seek help...
therapies,
and on the use of hypnosis
Hypnosis
Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...
in brief therapy. In Placebo Therapy, for example, Fish argued that stimulating the client's positive expectancy of change was a primary source of the effectiveness of therapy. Hence, rather than attempting
to minimize or control for the placebo effect, therapy should be structured so as to
maximize it. Patrick Pentony's Models of Influence in Psychotherapy presented
Fish's placebo model as one of only three models of influence underlying the numerous systems of psychotherapy. (The other two are the resocialization model and the contextual model). Fish's book also stimulated Irving Kirsch's
Irving Kirsch
Irving Kirsch is Associate Director of the Program in Placebo Studies and a lecturer in medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is also a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Hull, United Kingdom and the University of Connecticut in the...
research on
response expectancy theory, in which people's experience—such as becoming calmer or happier—is affected by what they expect to experience.
Cross-cultural psychology
Within cross-cultural psychologyCross-cultural psychology
Cross-cultural psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental process, including both their variability and invariance, under diverse cultural conditions...
his writings have dealt mainly with comparing and contrasting the race concept in a variety of cultures, the race-IQ debate, and Brazil. Contrary to the folk view of race as a fixed biological phenomenon, Fish argues that people can change their race simply by traveling from one culture to another. What changes is not what they look like, or their genes, or ancestry, but rather the set of cultural categories (folk taxonomy) each culture uses to classify them. Fish's article Mixed Blood, comparing the American and Brazilian conceptions of race, has been anthologized by various disciplines, including history and anthropology. Fish was a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. He speaks Portuguese, French, Spanish, and German.
Drug policy
Fish has contrasted two causal models underlying drug policy. The current view is that drugs cause crime and corruption, and spread disease. As a result, drugs have been made illegal. Drug dealers have armed themselves to combat law enforcement, and an escalating arms race has ensued. Fish has argued that this model is fallacious, and has argued for an alternative model: Drug prohibition causes a black market, and the black market causes crime and corruption, and spreads disease. As a result, drug policy should be aimed at shrinking the black market. To achieve this aim, he has been active in bringing together multidisciplinary, international, and American sub-cultural perspectives on drug policyDrug policy
A drug policy most often refers to a government's attempt to combat the negative effects of drug addiction and misuse in its society. Governments try to combat drug addiction with policies which address both the demand and supply of drugs, as well as policies which can mitigate the harms of drug...
, and to promoting consideration of a wide range of policy alternatives to the War on Drugs
War on Drugs
The War on Drugs is a campaign of prohibition and foreign military aid and military intervention being undertaken by the United States government, with the assistance of participating countries, intended to both define and reduce the illegal drug trade...
. He has served as Adjunct Coordinator of the Committee on Drugs and the Law of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; and his broadening the discussion of policy alternatives has had an impact on debates in legal and policy circles.
Journalism
Since his retirement in 2006, Fish has been involved in writing for a broader audience; and he has published in Psychology Today, The Humanist, The Independent Review, and Newsday. His Psychology TodayPsychology Today
Psychology Today is a bi-monthly magazine published in the United States. It is a psychology-based magazine about relationships, health, and related topics written for a mass audience of non-psychologists. Psychology Today was founded in 1967 and features articles on such topics as love,...
blog is Looking in the Cultural Mirror.
Principal works
Fish, J. M. (1973). Placebo therapy: A practical guide to socialinfluence in psychotherapy. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Fish, J. M. (1976). Dimensões da empatia terapêutica. Campinas, São
Paulo, Brazil: Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas. (Dimensions of
therapeutic empathy. Published in Portuguese.)
Pfafflin, S. M., Sechzer, J. A., Fish, J. M., & Thompson, R. L. (Eds.).
(1990). Psychology: Perspectives and Practice. New York City, NY: New
York Academy of Sciences. (Annals, Vol. 602)
Fish, J. M. (1996). Culture and therapy: An integrative approach.
Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (1998). How to legalize drugs. Northvale, NJ: Jason
Aronson.
Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (2000). Is our drug policy effective? Are there
alternatives? New York City, NY: Fordham Urban Law Journal. (Proceedings
of the March 17 & 18, 2000 joint conference of the New York Academy of
Sciences, New York Academy of Medicine, and Association of the Bar of the
City of New York. Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 3–262.)
Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (2002). Race and intelligence: Separating science from myth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gielen, U. P., Fish, J. M. & Draguns, J. G. (Eds.) (2004). Handbook of culture, therapy, and healing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Fish, J. M. (Ed.) (2006). Drugs and society: U. S. public policy.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Gielen, U. P., Draguns, J. G., & Fish, J. M. (Eds.) (2008). Principles of multicultural counseling and therapy. New York: Routledge.
Fish, J. M. (2011). The concept of race and psychotherapy. New York:
Springer Science + Business Media.
External links
- Looking in the Cultural Mirror - Fish's blog at Psychology TodayPsychology TodayPsychology Today is a bi-monthly magazine published in the United States. It is a psychology-based magazine about relationships, health, and related topics written for a mass audience of non-psychologists. Psychology Today was founded in 1967 and features articles on such topics as love,...