Peter A. Olsson
Encyclopedia
Peter A. Olsson is an American
psychiatrist
, psychoanalyst and author. He is author of the book, Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time: A Psychological Study of Destructive Cult Leaders from Rev. Jim Jones to Osama bin Laden, a book on what he describes as "destructive cult leaders
".
Olsson won the 1979 Judith Baskin Offer Prize for his paper "Adolescent Involvement with the Supernatural and Cults."
and New Hampshire
. He has published many scholarly papers and contributed chapters to eight books about psychology.
Olsson is an assistant professor of psychiatry, supervising medical residents at Dartmouth Medical School
; Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Baylor College of Medicine
; Past President of the Houston Psychiatric Society; a graduate of the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute; Fellow of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis; and Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association
.
and Shoko Asahara
. These include "A Malignant Pied Piper: Osama bin Laden", which also appeared as Chapter 5 in the book Jihad and Sacred Vengeance: Psychological Undercurrents of History, and "Shoko Asahara: The malignant pied piper of Japan", which was cited by Rosenman in The American Journal of Psychoanalysis. Other leaders of destructive cult
s discussed in the work, whom Olsson terms "malignant pied pipers" include: Jim Jones
, David Koresh
, Charles Manson
, Luc Jouret
, Marshall Applewhite
, and Joseph Di Mambro. Olsson analyzed the psychology
behind mass murder
and mass suicide
events that have surrounded destructive cults.
In 2006, Olsson gave the plenary speech at the annual meeting of The American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians, where he spoke about his Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time, and took questions from fellow physicians.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
, psychoanalyst and author. He is author of the book, Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time: A Psychological Study of Destructive Cult Leaders from Rev. Jim Jones to Osama bin Laden, a book on what he describes as "destructive cult leaders
Destructive cult
A destructive cult is a religion or other group which has caused or has a high probability of causing harm to its own members or to others. Some researchers define "harm" in this case with a narrow focus, specifically groups which have deliberately physically injured or killed other individuals,...
".
Olsson won the 1979 Judith Baskin Offer Prize for his paper "Adolescent Involvement with the Supernatural and Cults."
Medical career
Olsson has practiced medicine as a psychiatrist for more than 30 years in TexasTexas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
and New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
. He has published many scholarly papers and contributed chapters to eight books about psychology.
Olsson is an assistant professor of psychiatry, supervising medical residents at Dartmouth Medical School
Dartmouth Medical School
Dartmouth Medical School is the medical school of Dartmouth College, located in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. The fourth-oldest medical school in the United States, Dartmouth Medical School was founded in 1797 by New England physician Nathan Smith and grew steadily over the course...
; Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine, located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas, USA, is a highly regarded medical school and leading center for biomedical research and clinical care...
; Past President of the Houston Psychiatric Society; a graduate of the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute; Fellow of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis; and Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association
American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the most influential worldwide. Its some 38,000 members are mainly American but some are international...
.
Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time
Prior to publishing Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time in 2005, Olsson had written other scholarly articles on the subject; specifically on Osama bin LadenOsama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
and Shoko Asahara
Shoko Asahara
, born on March 2, 1955, is a founder of the controversial Japanese new religious group Aum Shinrikyo. He was convicted of masterminding the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway and several other crimes, for which he was sentenced to death...
. These include "A Malignant Pied Piper: Osama bin Laden", which also appeared as Chapter 5 in the book Jihad and Sacred Vengeance: Psychological Undercurrents of History, and "Shoko Asahara: The malignant pied piper of Japan", which was cited by Rosenman in The American Journal of Psychoanalysis. Other leaders of destructive cult
Destructive cult
A destructive cult is a religion or other group which has caused or has a high probability of causing harm to its own members or to others. Some researchers define "harm" in this case with a narrow focus, specifically groups which have deliberately physically injured or killed other individuals,...
s discussed in the work, whom Olsson terms "malignant pied pipers" include: Jim Jones
Jim Jones
James Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip.Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in...
, David Koresh
David Koresh
David Koresh , born Vernon Wayne Howell, was the leader of a Branch Davidian religious sect, believing himself to be its final prophet. Howell legally changed his name to David Koresh on May 15, 1990. A 1993 raid by the U.S...
, Charles Manson
Charles Manson
Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders carried out by members of the group at his instruction...
, Luc Jouret
Luc Jouret
Luc Jouret , born in Kikwit, Belgian Congo, was a Belgian religious group leader in Switzerland. He co-founded the Parti Communautaire Européen with Jean Thiriart, a leading member of the neo-Nazi Jeune Europe Belgian group...
, Marshall Applewhite
Marshall Applewhite
Marshall Herff Applewhite, Jr. , known among his followers as "Do", was the leader of the Heaven's Gate religious group. A self-proclaimed prophet and messiah, he died in the group's mass suicide of 1997.-Early life:...
, and Joseph Di Mambro. Olsson analyzed the psychology
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...
behind mass murder
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
and mass suicide
Mass suicide
- Examples :Mass suicide sometimes occurs in religious or cultic settings. Defeated groups may resort to mass suicide rather than being captured. Suicide pacts are a form of mass suicide unconnected to cults or war that are sometimes planned or carried out by small groups of frustrated people...
events that have surrounded destructive cults.
In 2006, Olsson gave the plenary speech at the annual meeting of The American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians, where he spoke about his Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time, and took questions from fellow physicians.
Awards and honors
- 1967 Award for Excellence in Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine
- 1969 William C. Mennuger Award, Central Neuropsychiatric Association, Honorable Mention for article: "Elective Mutism in Childhood"
- 1978 Houston Group Psychotherapy Society Award, Meritorious Contributions as Senior Faculty Member of Annual Institutes in Group Therapy
- 1979 Judith Baskin Offer Prize, paper "Adolescent Involvement with the Supernatural and Cults."
- 1999 Special Service Award, Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians, San AntonioSan Antonio, TexasSan Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
, Texas
Professional associations
- Assistant professor of psychiatry, supervising medical residents at Dartmouth Medical School
- Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine
- Past President, Houston Psychiatric Society
- Fellow, American Academy of Psychoanalysis
- Distinguished Life Fellow, American Psychiatric Association
Education
- B.S.Bachelor of ScienceA Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
, Wheaton CollegeWheaton College (Illinois)Wheaton College is a private, evangelical Protestant liberal arts college in Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago in the United States...
, 1963 - M.D.Doctor of MedicineDoctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
, Baylor College of Medicine, 1967 - Internship, University of VermontUniversity of VermontThe University of Vermont comprises seven undergraduate schools, an honors college, a graduate college, and a college of medicine. The Honors College does not offer its own degrees; students in the Honors College concurrently enroll in one of the university's seven undergraduate colleges or...
, 1968 - Psychoanalysis graduate training, Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute, 1981
Books
- Malignant Pied Pipers of Our Time: A Psychological Study of Destructive Cult Leaders From the Rev. Jim Jones to Osama bin Laden. Publish America, 2005.
Articles
- “Elective Mutism in Children: A Difficult Problem for The School and Therapist,” Medical Records and Annals of the The Medical Center, Vol. 61, No. 11 (November, 1968): 366-370. Olsson, P.A. and Kraft I.
- “The B.U.D. in Chronic Alcoholics and Its Resolution Through Psychodrama,” Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, Vol. XXIII, No. 3-4 (1970): 84-90 Olsson, P.A. and Fankhauser, J.
- “Nonverbal Techniques in an Adolescent Group,” International Journal of Group Psychotherary (April, 1972): 186-191.Olsson, P.A. and Meyers, I.,
- “Psychodrama and Group Therapy with Young Heroin Addicts Returning from Duty in Vietnam,” Psychodrama and Group Psychotherapy, Vol. XXV, No. 4 (19973): 141-147. Olsson, P.A.
- The Use of Pedagogic Drama in Psychiatric Education,” Journal of Medical Education, Vol. 59 (March, 1975) 299-300. Byrd, G.J. and Olsson
- “The Use of Sex Therapy in a Patient with a Penile Prosthesis,” Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, Vol. L, No. 4 (Summer 1975): 305-311. Divita, E.C. and Olsson, P. A.,
- “Erectile Impotence Treated with an Implantable, Inflatable Prosthesis",” The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 241, No. 24 (June 15, 1979): 2609-2613. Scott, F. B.., Byrd, G.J., Karacan, I., Olsson, P.A., Beutler, L.E. and Attita, S.I.
- “Psychiatric Evaluation of the Penile Implant Candidate,” in Sleep Disorders: Diagnosis and Treatment. Williams, R. and Karacan, I., Editors. New York: Wiley (1978): 395-399. Byrd, G. and Olsson, P.A., (Book Chapter 16)
- “The Expressive Arts Fields in Evaluation and Treatment,” in The Clinician’s Manual of Mental Health Care: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach. Moffic, S. and Adams, G., Editors. New York: Addison-Wesley (1980). Olsson, P.A. (Chapter 13)
- “Adolescent Involvement With the Supernatural and Cults: Some Clinical, Theoretical and Applied Psychoanalytic Considerations.” The Annual of Psychoanalysis of the Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis. Vol. VIII (1980): 171-196. Olsson, P.A.
- “New Uses of Psychodrama.” Journal of Operational Psychiatry, Vol. 114, No. 2 (1983): 96-102. Olsson, P. A. and Barth, P. A.
- “New Bottlers for Old Wine: Adolescent Involvement With the Supernatural and Cults.” In: Psychodynamic Perspectives on Religion, Sect and Cults. Halpern, D., Editor. Boston: John Wright (1983): 235-256. Olsson, P.A., (Book Chapter 14)
- “Complexities in the Psychology and Psychotherapy Of the Phenomenally Wealthy.” In Last Taboo: Money as Symbol and Reality in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Krueger, D., Editor. New York: Bruner/Mazel (1986): 55-69. Olsson, P.A. (Book Chapter 6)
- “Constructive Approaches to Counter-Transference in Couples Group Psychotherapy.” The Journal of the Houston Group Psychotherapy Society. Vol. L, No. l (September, 1986): 57-67. Olsson, P.A.
- “The Terrorist and the Terrorized: Some Psychoanalytic Considerations.” The Journal of Psychohistory. Vol. 16, No. 1 (Summer, 1988): 47-60. Olsson, P.A.
- “Psychodrama and Group Therapy Approaches to Alexithymia.” In Group Psychodynamics: New Paradigms and New Perspectives. Halperin, O. A., Editor. Chicago, London, Boca Raton: Year Book Medical Publishers (1989): 169-180. Olsson, P. A. (Book Chapter 11)
- “The Terrorist and the Terrorized.” In: The Psychodynamics of International Relationships, Vol. 1, Concepts and Theories. Volkan, V., Julius, D., and Montville, J., Editors. Lexington, MA: Heath (1990): 181-192. Olsson, P.A., (Book Chapter 14)
- “Media power: The Vietnam and Gulf Wars.” Mind and Human Interaction, Vol. 3, No. 3 (May, 1992): 85-87. Olsson, P.A.
- “Our Deepening Crisis in Collegiality,” The Psychiatric Times, Vol. X, No. 1 (January, 1993): 7.
- “Sobriety Shop - A Variation on the Magic Shop For Addiction Treatment Patients.” In: Psychotherapy, Psychodrama & Sociometry, Vol. 46, No. 1, (Spring, 1993) Rustin, T.A. and Olsson, P. A.
- “A Psychoanalytic Study of Integrity, Inner Courage and ‘Good Character’” Mind and Human interaction, Vol. 5, No. 1, (February, 1994): 34-42. Olsson, P.A.
- “In Search of Their Fathers-Themselves: Jim Jones and David Koresh” Mind and Human Interaction, Vol. 5, No. 3 (August, 1994): 85-96. Olsson, P.A.
- “Shoko Asahara: The Malignant Pied Piper of Japan.” Mind and Human Interaction, Vol. 7, No. 2 (May, 1996): 54-63. Olsson, P.A.
- “Time Compressed: Psychoanalysis in the Days of AIDS and HIV.” J. Amer. Academy of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 25, No. 2 (1997): 277-293. Olsson, P.A.
- Psychodynamics of Leaders and Decision-Making, Monograph---"Mind & Human Interaction", vol 9 #3 , 1998 Olsson, P.A. with Volkan et al.
- "Cry wolf’ often: Violence prevention at the mental health clinic.” Journal of Healthcare Safety, Compliance & Infection Control, Vol. 3, No. 5,May 1999 p205-206. Olsson, P.A.
- “A Psychoanalytic Study of Integrity and ‘Good Character’”, Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis Vol28#3 , Fall 2000 p397-409. Olsson, P.A.
- "Grave Dangers From Bad Examples (Bullies and Arrogant "Celebrities") The Keene Sentinel March 20, 2001. Olsson, P.A.
- “Love of Community: My Experience as a Member of The Citizen Review Committee of The Houston Police Department”. Houston Psychiatric Society News, Vol. 3, Issue 6, June,2001, pp2–4.Olsson, P.A.
- “The Mind Of Osama bin Laden : Ultimate Terror Cult Leader" , Fall/Winter issueThe Academy Form -of The American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 2002. Olsson, P.A.