Henry Murray

I chose Henry Alexander Murray for my lesser known therapist. He was born in New York City in 1983 and he had two siblings (Kazdin, 2000). Murray attended and graduated from Harvard College and he married and had one child. When I first decided to write about Murray, I didn’t know very much about him. One fact that surprised me is that Murray was actually uninterested in psychology in college. For instance, Kazdin (2000) asserts that “the only formal course he ever took in psychology was with Hugo Munsterberg, but he walked out after the first class when he found out the material had no relevance to personal experience” (p. 358). He was more interested in the medical field. Murray did not become interested in psychology until a few years after he graduated from Harvard.
Furthermore, after he became interested in psychology, another fact that I found to be interesting, is that Murray knew Carl Gustav Jung, and was even his “lifelong friend and confidante” (Kazdin, 2000). This makes sense to me considering the fact that Jung also heavily studied personalities. In addition, Murray was “B.F. Skinner’s first psychology professor (in 1929) and gave Erik Erikson his first job” (Kazdin, 2000). This surprised me because B.F. Skinner and Erik Erikson are both very well-known therapists. Moreover, Murray did a lot of research and studies that focused directly on individuals. According to Kazdin (2000), Murray “also embarked on a 30-year study of personality in the dyadic encounter, an answer to critics’ charges that his early work had been too focused on the individual alone” (p. 359). Evidently, Murray overly enjoyed studying every angle of a person. Furthermore, Kazdin (2000), asserts that Murray’s “motto…was ‘Let not him who seeks cease...

... middle of paper ...

... and future; however, most tests do emphasize the importance of understanding different characteristics of personalities. In addition, the TAT is considered to be a projective personality test, which is still used today (Davis & Buskist, p. 282).

Works Cited

Barresi, J., & Juckes, T. J. (1997). Personology and the narrative interpretation of lives. Journal of Personality, 65(3), 693-719. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/235956131?accountid=2280
Davis, S. F., & Buskist, W. (Eds.). (2008). 21st Century Psychology a Reference Handbook. Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, & Singapore: Sage Publications.
Handbook of personology and psychopathology. (2005, 06). Scitech Book News, 29 Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/200155386?accountid=2280
Kazdin, A. American Psychological association & Oxford Press. Encyclopedia of Psychology (Vol. 5).