Abraham Low (1891–1954) was an American

neuropsychiatrist Neuropsychiatry or Organic Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with psychiatry as it relates to neurology, in an effort to understand and attribute behavior to the interaction of neurobiology and social psychology factors. Within neurop ...

noted for his work in establishing self-help programs for people with mental illness, and for his criticism of

Freudian Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

Early years

Low was born February 28, 1891, in

Baranów Sandomierski Baranów Sandomierski is a small town in southern Poland, in the Subcarpathian Voivodship, Tarnobrzeg County on the Vistula River, with 1,420 inhabitants as of December 2021. Baranów lies near the Vistula river, along voivodeship road nr. 985, ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

. Low attended

grade school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

and medical school in France from 1910 to 1918. He continued his medical education in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, serving in the Medical Corps of the Austrian Army. He graduated with a medical degree in 1919, after his military service, from the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich h ...

Medical School. After serving an

internship An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and gover ...

Vienna, Austria en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

from 1919 to 1920, he immigrated to the United States, obtaining his U.S. citizenship in 1927.

Career

From 1921 to 1925 he practiced medicine in both

New York, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. In 1925 he was appointed as an instructor of

neurology Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...

at the

University of Illinois College of Medicine The University of Illinois College of Medicine offers a four-year program leading to the MD degree at four different sites in Illinois: Chicago, Peoria, Rockford, and formerly Urbana–Champaign. The Urbana–Champaign site stopped accepting ne ...

and became an associate professor of psychiatry. In 1931 Low was appointed assistant director and in 1940 became acting director of the university's Neuropsychiatric Institute. From 1931 to 1941 he supervised the Illinois State Hospitals. During this time he conducted demanding seminars with the staff and interviewed the most severe mental patients in the wards. In 1936, Low's ''Studies in Infant Speech and Thought'' was published by the University of Illinois Press. Some sixty papers are by Low dealing variously with such topics as:

Histopathology Histopathology (compound of three Greek words: ''histos'' "tissue", πάθος ''pathos'' "suffering", and -λογία '' -logia'' "study of") refers to the microscopic examination of tissue in order to study the manifestations of disease. Sp ...

of brain and spinal cord, studies on speech disturbances (

aphasias Aphasia is an inability to comprehend or formulate language because of damage to specific brain regions. The major causes are stroke and head trauma; prevalence is hard to determine but aphasia due to stroke is estimated to be 0.1–0.4% in t ...

) in brain lesions, clinical testing of psychiatric and neurological conditions, studies in

shock treatment ''Shock Treatment'' is a 1981 American musical comedy film directed by Jim Sharman, and co-written by Sharman and Richard O'Brien. It is a follow-up to the 1975 film ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show''. While not an outright sequel, the film doe ...

, laboratory investigations of mental diseases; and several articles on

group psychotherapy Group psychotherapy or group therapy is a form of psychotherapy in which one or more therapists treat a small group of clients together as a group. The term can legitimately refer to any form of psychotherapy when delivered in a group format, ...

had been published in medical periodicals.

Death and legacy

Low died in 1954 at the Mayo Clinic in

Rochester, Minnesota Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on rolling bluffs on the Zumbro River's south fork in Southeast Minnesota, the city is the home and birthplace of the renowned Mayo Clinic. Ac ...

. His contributions to the psychiatric and mental health communities are often not well known, but his work has and continues to assist numerous individuals in the area of mental health. The psychologist and founder of REBT,

Albert Ellis Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was cert ...

, credits Low as a founder of

cognitive behavioral therapy Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions (su ...

Recovery International

In 1937, Low founded Recovery, Inc. where he served as its medical director from 1937 to 1954. During this time he presented lectures to relatives of former patients on his work with these patients and the before and after scenarios. In 1941, Recovery Inc. became an independent organization. Low's three volumes of ''The Technique of Self-help in Psychiatric Aftercare'' (including "Lectures to Relatives of Former Patients") were published by Recovery, Inc. in 1943. Recovery's main text, ''Mental Health Through Will-Training'', was originally published in 1950. During the organization's annual meeting in June 2007, it was announced that Recovery, Inc. would thereafter be known as

Recovery International Recovery International (formerly Recovery, Inc., often referred to simply as Recovery or RI) is a mental health self-help organization founded in 1937 by neuropsychiatrist Abraham A. Low, Abraham Low in Chicago, Illinois. Recovery's program is bas ...

References

External links