Leighton Whitaker: An appreciation

Leighton Whitaker, the founder and for 25 years, editor of the Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, a man who helped define our field, died on May 10, 2018, in Media, Pennsylvania. He was 86.

Lee’s psychologist career was packed with achievements. A graduate of Swarthmore College (BA) and Wayne State University (PhD) and diplomate in clinical psychology, he directed three psychological services: University of Colorado Health Sciences Center (also serving as associate professor); University of Massachusetts, Amherst (also a professor); and Swarthmore College. His 90 professional publications tackled, inter alia, social justice, college student suicide, the understanding and prevention of violence, and schizophrenia (he developed the Whitaker Index of Schizophrenic Thinking, a screening tool). He chaired American College Health Association (ACHA)’s mental health section and, into his 80s, co-edited a second journal, Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, and maintained a private practice. We are leaving stuff out, but you get the idea.

To us, of course, Lee’s signal accomplishment was creating and fostering the journal you are now reading. Started in 1986, JCSP is the one publication expressly written for college counseling centers, “the go-to place to learn counseling center professionals’ ideas about trends, issues and debates” (Grayson & Meilman, 2011). That he was able to churn out quarterly issues for so long, so well, by himself, is an amazement—take it from someone (Paul) who, sharing the burden as coeditor, succeeded him for a mere 5 years, breathing heavily all the while. However he did it—we know it wasn’t drugs!—Lee’s quarter century tenure as editor stands as a heroic, monumental contribution.

Like many high achievers, Lee did not have a typical middle-class upbringing. Though he once wrote “I grew up a relatively protected suburbanite” (Whitaker, 1970), the operative word here is “relatively.” The son of a railroad worker, he put cardboard in his shoes as a boy, and—one of his marvelous stories—once chased after a dog who stole a precious piece of meat from the kitchen counter while his mother’s back was turned. He got into Swarthmore on a combined academic and athletic scholarship (he was a good basketball player and a better baseball pitcher). At Swarthmore, he met his future wife, Suzanne, one time buying her sodas but refusing a second one himself; the truth was he lacked the money. To earn money for college, he worked on the docks and yards of a South Philadelphia oil refinery.

Lee’s modest background no doubt propelled his lifelong concern for social justice. Another influence was working side-by-side at the oil refinery with men from the slums damaged by “poverty, racism and urbanism,” inspiring his later development of a comprehensive community mental health center (Whitaker, 1970). Eye-opening too was a baseball tryout in Florida with the Cincinnati Reds farm system, when the driver of the players’ bus admonished him to return to the front seats and stop talking baseball with the African American players in the back; Lee being Lee, later at the park he climbed into the bleachers to talk to Black fans. Lee was also appalled by forced reliance on drug treatment and involuntary seclusion he discovered at psychiatry wards and sought to establish an “empathic ward” based on psychological treatment (Whitaker & Deikman, 2009). In all instances, the common thread was his empathy and determination to help the downtrodden.

Half-hearted positions were not Lee’s style. He fought for social justice. He campaigned to understand and prevent violence. He was a staunch defender of psychotherapy (note the name of this journal). And—here things get dicey—he skewered drug treatment. Though some of us felt his opposition to psychotropic medications went too far, that for certain mental health sufferers drug treatment is a necessity, Lee’s arguments were always worth heeding, a useful corrective to the forces in society promoting easy answers and quick fixes. We should note that when it came to ingesting substances, be it medicines or recreational drugs or smoking or alcohol, Lee practiced what he preached. A lifelong teetotaler, the only exception he allowed, according to Swarthmore College’s yearbook, was “smoking on the pitcher’s mound.”

Knowing Lee was a delightful, warming experience. Tall and lean befitting an ex-ballplayer, he had a gentle manner, soothing psychologist’s voice, and a laugh that lodged in one’s memory. He told great stories and exuded kindness and goodness. One of us (Jeff) remembers both the stories and animated exchanges about all aspects of violence, culminating in a coedited volume on campus violence (Whitaker & Pollard, 1993) and Jeff’s new specialization on violence prevention: “he literally changed my professional life.” And one of us (Paul) fondly recalls showing up green and uncertain in Philadelphia at his first directors’ conference three decades ago, Lee somehow materializing like a kindly uncle to show him around the neighborhood and make him feel welcome. It was the beginning of a long, treasured, professional friendship.

His health failing in his last years, Lee continued his private practice and editing of Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, and to the end was a lover of biographies, Rachmaninoff and the Ink Spots, and all Philadelphia sports teams. He is survived by his wife, Suzanne; children, Corinne, Priscilla, and Benjamin; grandson, David (a standout pitcher like his granddad); and in-laws, nieces, nephews, grandnieces, and grandnephews.

Thank you, Lee Whitaker. All of us in college mental health are in your debt.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.