X-Message-Number: 22220
From: "Steve Harris" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #22210 Becker's Profession and Vocation
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 18:59:11 -0700

> Message #22210
> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 15:48:58 +0200
> Subject: Re: CryoNet #22194 Becker and Death Denial
> From: David Stodolsky
<>
>
> On Wednesday, July 16, 2003, at 11:00  AM, CryoNet wrote:
>
> > Generally, no. Thus, Becker is correct. He is a
psychiatrist
> > who has transcended his teachers, and no fool as regards
> > human psychology.
>
> Really nice summary of Becker's book, but he was a
cultural
> anthropologist, who did his dissertation on Zen Buddhism.


Thanks for the correction. He was indeed not a psychiatrist
(MD) and I had meant to write psychologist, but even that is
not formally correct. Becker was, as you say, formally a
cultural anthropologist (ie, that's what his Ph.D. reads),
but one who taught for some time in a school of psychiatry,
with psychiatrists, and to psychiatry students. He went down
with the Szasz ship, and spent some years after that as a
peripatetic school. But he published mostly in psychiatry
journals, and his Ph.D. thesis was not just about Zen, but
also about transference and other Freudian topics.
Basically, Becker was at home with psychiatry in the old
fashioned Freud and Jung sense of being interested in
everything human, call it what you like. But not a
physician. For good Google info on the man, you have to
spell his given name Ernest, rather than Ernst. Don't know
which is actually correct. Some good bio info here:

http://paow.org/id157.htm

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