Maurice K. Temerlin (January 15, 1924 – January 15, 1988), was a

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

and author.

Work and research

Suggestion Effects of Psychiatric Labels

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Temerlin published a series of articles examining the effect of diagnostic labels. Temerlin and his colleagues asked clinicians to evaluate and diagnose a man. Before making their diagnosis, they were told that an 'expert' had previously diagnosed the individual as 'psychotic'. The man was in fact a mentally healthy individual who was a confederate of the experimenters. Even though the man did not present with symptoms of psychosis, many clinicians agreed with the 'expert' diagnosis.

Work with Lucy

With his wife Jane W. Temerlin, Temerlin raised a

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of Hominidae, great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close rel ...

named

Lucy Lucy is an English language, English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings ar ...

who was owned by the Institute for Primate Studies at the

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma, United States. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two territories became the ...

Norman, Oklahoma Norman () is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, 3rd most populous city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, with a population of 128,026 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the most populous city and the county seat of Clevel ...

. Temerlin and his wife raised Lucy in their home as if she were a human child, teaching her to eat with silverware, dress herself, flip through magazines, and sit in a chair at the dinner table. She was taught

American Sign Language American Sign Language (ASL) is a natural language that serves as the predominant sign language of Deaf communities in the United States and most of Anglophone Canadians, Anglophone Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that i ...

by primatologist

Roger Fouts Roger S. Fouts (born June 8, 1943) is a retired American primate researcher. He was co-founder and co-director of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) in Washington, and a professor of psychology at the Central Washington Univ ...

as part of an ape language project. Temerlin wrote the book ''Lucy: Growing Up Human: A Chimpanzee Daughter in a Psychotherapist's Family'', analyzing the chimp's behaviour and describing her life.

'Psychotherapy Cults'

Temerlin collaborated academically with his wife on articles, including "Psychotherapy Cults: An Iatrogenic Perversion," which was published in ''Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice''. The work remains highly regarded, and is cited by numerous academicians, including Robert S. Pepper,

Michael Langone Michael D. Langone (born 1947) is an American counseling psychologist who specializes in research about cultic groups and psychological manipulation. He is executive director of the International Cultic Studies Association, and founding editor ...

, Guy Fielding and Sue Llewelyn, David A. Halperin, and Arnold Markowitz, and Dennis Tourish and Pauline Irving.Irving, P., & Tourish, D. (1995). "Group influence and the psychology of cultism within re-evaluation counselling: a critique". ''Counselling Psychology Quarterly'', 8(1), 15-30.

Publications

Books

*''Lucy: Growing Up Human: A Chimpanzee Daughter in a Psychotherapist's Family'', Temerlin, Maurice. 1976 *''Labelling Madness'', Contributor, "Suggestion Effects in Psychiatric Diagnosis," Thomas J. Scheff, (ed.),

Prentice-Hall Prentice Hall was a major American educational publisher. It published print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market. It was an independent company throughout the bulk of the twentieth century. In its last few years it ...

, Inc.,

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey Englewood Cliffs is a borough in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 5,342, an increase of 61 (+1.2%) from the 2010 census count of 5,281, which in turn reflected a ...

, 1975. *''The Social Psychology of Clinical Diagnosis'',

, Dept. of Psychology 1966

Articles

"Some Hazards of the Therapeutic Relationship"
Jane W. Temerlin, M. S. W., Maurice K. Temerlin, Ph. D., ''Cultic Studies Journal''
Diagnostic Bias in Community Mental Health
''Community Mental Health Journal'', Volume 6, Number 2 / April, 1970

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Temerlin 20th-century American psychologists Researchers of new religious movements and cults 1924 births 1988 deaths American psychotherapists University of Oklahoma faculty Scientists from Oklahoma