The Pioneers of Psychotherapy Lived Long, Productive Lives

Several years ago, I authored three books and a string of articles featuring contributions and interviews with some of the greatest therapists in the world. At the time, I searched for commonalities that might be relevant. Recently, I revisited those commonalities and noticed one factor, seemingly unrelated to the psychotherapeutic process, that stood out: advanced longevity. This subject seems to be of increasing interest today.

By examining the experts featured in my books and articles, and adding a few more world-class therapists to the mix, I reached a striking conclusion. Simply put, many of these professionals enjoyed or continue to enjoy extremely long and productive lives. Here are some examples:

• Albert Ellis lived to be 93 and completed his interview with me at age 89.
• The father of CBT, Aaron T. Beck, made it to 100.
• Muriel James, who penned the transactional analysis and gestalt classic Born to Win, lived to 101. For context, only 0.027% of Americans reach 100. Muriel was 86 at the time of our interview.
• Ray Corsini, editor of Current Psychotherapies and one of the top psychologists of the last 150 years, was 94 when he passed away.
• Suicide and thanatology expert Ed Schneidman lived to 91. Did you know Edwin Shneidman coined the term “suicidology”?
• Career counseling guru Richard Nelson Bolles, author of What Color is Your Parachute? the best-selling career choice book of all time, lived to 90.
• William Glasser, the father of reality therapy with choice theory, died at 89.
• Viktor Frankl, the creator of logotherapy and a Holocaust survivor, lived to 92.
• Robert Firestone, the father of voice therapy, was 94 and still active as I wrote this blog, but sadly passed away prior to its publication.
• Irvin Yalom, an expert in group therapy, humanistic therapy, and death and dying, is 93.  

The Masters Share their Secrets to Longevity

If this phenomenon is the norm, what is responsible? Just what constitutes the magic bullet? Is helping others beneficial for the helper? Is listening and empathy advantageous to human physiology? Is it frequent sitting? (Certainly not according to any expert I have ever heard!) Is it getting up from the therapy chair, simulating an air-squat repetition performed at the beginning and end of each 50-minute hour fountain of youth? Have therapists stumbled onto their own brand of interval training? Could the benefits come from the intellectual stimulation from thinking and analyzing client behaviors?

When I asked Ellis about his secret to remarkable longevity, I jokingly asked if he had the water at his institute spiked with vitamin E or something. I inquired if he was into herbs or cranking out crunches while his clients shared their tales of woe. Was it the REBT thinking that kept him youthful?

Ellis shared that he had good heredity. His mother and her whole family lived into their nineties. His dad lived until age 80 and was one of the earliest to die in his family. Ellis insisted he didn’t use anything special, just worked on his emotional problems and avoided upsetting himself about things. He added that learning new things, helping people, and engaging with music kept him going.

But could the secret lie outside the therapy sessions? Or to put it a different way, could the answer be found in what therapists do when they are not actively engaged in the practice of psychotherapy or after the point in their career where they are no longer seeing clients?

Consider my exchange with Muriel James a while after our interview; when I inquired about whether she was still doing individual and group therapy, she told me she had branched out.

“What do you mean, branched out?” I asked.

She explained that she would get up early surrounded by a cup of java and about 50 history books. (Did she say 50 books? Yes, Howard, she said 50!)

She had discovered, at least at the time, that female history authors were discriminated against and therefore she was writing the texts using a male pseudonym. Talk about practicing what you preach. In my mind Muriel was using Born to Win self-therapy 2.0.

Yes, some luminaries in our field left us too soon, and for the 1000th time, correlation is not causation, but this phenomenon is certainly something to ponder. Just ask any therapist!

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

What are your impressions of the author’s connection between success and longevity?

How do you stay focused and sharp as you age in your clinical career?

Which one of these elder statespeople do you admire and why?  


File under: Musings and Reflections