Theodore H. Blau (March 3, 1928 – January 28, 2003) was a noted clinical,

police The police are a Law enforcement organization, constituted body of Law enforcement officer, persons empowered by a State (polity), state, with the aim to law enforcement, enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citize ...

and

forensic psychologist Forensic psychology is the development and application of scientific knowledge and methods to help answer legal questions arising in criminal, civil, contractual, or other judicial proceedings. Forensic psychology includes both research on various ...

who was the first clinician in independent practice to be elected president of the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

in 1977. He was a prolific writer and wrote, among other books and articles, a well known book on Forensic psychology.

History

Blau earned his bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. degrees from

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and completed his residency at the

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hospital in Perry Point, Maryland. He was an early adherent to

B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. C ...

and

Kenneth B. Clark Kenneth Bancroft Clark (July 24, 1914 – May 1, 2005) and Mamie Phipps Clark (April 18, 1917 – August 11, 1983) were American psychologists who as a married team conducted research among children and were active in the Civil Rights Movement. T ...

. After moving to

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Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

in 1955, he developed a successful private clinical practice, specializing in

child psychology Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development ...

cognitive psychology Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which ...

, and

behavior modification Behavior modification is an early approach that used respondent and operant conditioning to change behavior. Based on methodological behaviorism, overt behavior was modified with consequences, including positive and negative reinforcement conti ...

. Blau became prominent over the next 30 years in academic and

clinical psychology Clinical psychology is an integration of social 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 persona ...

. He later specialized in forensic psychology but never gave up his clinical practice and wrote technical books in the field. The Theodore H. Blau Early Career Award for Outstanding Contribution to Professional Clinical Psychology is an annual award bestowed in his honor by the American Psychological Association, Division 12, The Society of Clinical Psychology: "The Theodore H. Blau Early Career Award for Outstanding Contribution to Professional Clinical Psychology will be given by the Division of Clinical Psychology to a Clinical Psychologist who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession of Clinical Psychology." A key tobacco industry witness, Dr Theodore Blau, testified in both the Galbraith and the Cipollone trials according to a defence pattern that continues in 21st century trials. Specifically, to downplay the difficulty of quitting and the importance of nicotine and other ingredients, while shifting the responsibility to the smoker with the implication that the smoker's motivation to quit is the main factor.

Selected works

* Blau T.H. (1950). Report on a method of predicting success in psychotherapy. ''Journal of Clinical Psychology'', 6 (4), 403–406. * Blau, T.H. (1969). The professional in the community views the nonprofessional helper:. In Grosser, Cl, Henry, W.E. & Kelly, J.E. (Eds.), ''Nonprofessionals in the Suman Services''. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. * Blau, T.H. (1984). Foreword in Kaslow, F. (Ed.) ''Psychotherapy with Psychotherapists''. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Footnotes

1928 births 2003 deaths Forensic psychologists Presidents of the American Psychological Association 20th-century American psychologists American clinical psychologists American psychologists {{US-psychologist-stub