“Life as we know it must eventually use itself up. But even extinction has vitality. Even as they fall, the branches of the trees moderate the winds.” (—Mark Stern, Voices, Citation1982, Vol. 17, 4)
I knew Mark Stern for 34 years—as an editor, a mentor, a colleague, and, most of all, a dear and loyal friend. As we became friends, I realized that he embodied my concept of the consummate psychologist: clinician, teacher, writer, and giver of service to his profession. Above all, Mark was deeply committed to his psychotherapy practice for almost 50 years in New York City. Even when he “semi-retired” to his farm in Clinton Corners, New York, he continued to see a few hours of patients, nearly to the time of his death on March 11, 2014 at the age of 84.
For many years he held Assistant, Full Professor, and Emeritus Professor appointments at Iona College and, at varying times, adjunct appointments at Seton Hall University, Fordham University, the Australian Catholic University, and the Ferkauf Graduate School of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Psychoanalysis.
He was a Fellow and Faculty Member of the American Institute of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in New York City, as well as the Training Institute for Mental Health Practitioners in New York. His own training included a Certificate in Psychoanalysis from the Training Institute of the National Association for Psychoanalysis in 1958, after having earned his Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1955.
Mark was a Fellow of the American Psychological Association in five Divisions, including Division 32. He was also a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology in Clinical Psychology.
Mark took on significant journal editorial responsibilities throughout his career, most notably as editor of Voices: The Journal of the American Academy of Psychotherapists from the mid-seventies to 1989, which included the growth spurt period of humanistic/existential psychology and the human potential movement. He also edited the Journal of Pastoral Counseling, and after retiring from editing Voices, was founding editor of The Psychotherapy Patient, published by Haworth Press. Each issue of this journal focused on a specific type of clinical problem or personality type, and some of Mark's best descriptive writing and insight may be found in his regular contributions.
He was skilled at taking a clinical case and turning it into an interesting narrative of a suffering soul, who, when enlivened by the full presence and compassion of a skilled therapist, could find greater self-acceptance and new meaning in life. Mark clearly valued the notion of the “wounded healer,” and often wrote about his perceived calling to “bear witness” to those who came to him, no matter what their concerns. He spoke of the therapeutic value of knowing how to listen with his “third ear,” a reference to a term originated by one of his psychoanalytic supervisors in the 1950's, Theodor Reik.
Mark's writing style was rather unusual and, especially in the last couple of decades of his life, his meaning was often not readily transparent upon first reading. Colleagues who read his work recognized the uniqueness of his quasi-poetic expression. His choice of words and sentence structure often teased the reader to re-read and consider what he was offering. Because of his unique style, I believe the content of Mark's writing may not have always received the kind of attention it deserved. Even personal communications to colleagues and friends, such as hand-written letters and, later, e-mail and posts to listserves, often included embedded gems that required more than one reading to unearth. But for those who were willing to dig a bit and decipher his code, there was much to be gained.
Mark was one of the most clinically insightful thinkers I ever encountered. I say this after reading dozens of his published articles, chapters, and paper presentations over decades, my personal experiences with him, as well as our extensive personal correspondence. Despite the strong degree to which he identified with and embraced humanistic/existential philosophy and therapy, his earlier psychoanalytic training was always in the background of his daytime thinking and nighttime dreaming, consciously and unconsciously percolating into the sensibility of his work and subjective world.
Mark had a life-long interest in the study of cultural/regional popular religious movements and personal growth philosophies, theories and methods of psychotherapy, and classical and contemporary literature. These interests, combined with his first-hand exposure to many of the psychotherapy masters of his generation, qualified him to possess arguably the single most comprehensive historical knowledge of significant psychoanalytic and existential/humanistic psychology figures of anyone alive. I do not make this claim lightly.
To list the well-known innovators and masters of psychoanalytic, humanistic/existential, and family systems therapy that he knew personally as friends and colleagues, studied with, or received supervision, training, or personal psychotherapy from would be a “who's who” of the last 50 years. As a generational keeper of the historical humanistic/existential flame, I encouraged him often in his later years to record on video his memories and experiences for posterity. In the last meeting we had together, 4 months before his death, he told me he had, indeed, done some recording with the help of one of his children.
Mark was dedicated to serving the profession of psychology at all levels. He was President of two divisions of the American Psychological Association, including the Society for Humanistic Psychology. He ran for President of APA on two occasions in the early nineties, and served four nonconsecutive terms on the APA's Council of Representatives. The Division of the Psychology of Religion presented him the Virginia Sexton Mentoring Award and the Society for Humanistic Psychology chose him to receive the Carl Rogers Award in 1999 for outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of psychology.
He also was given the Div. 32 Lifetime Service Award in 2008 for an individual who, throughout his career, had given sustained loyal service. This award was later renamed the Mike Arons and E. Mark Stern Lifetime Service Award. Finally, last year he was awarded, and at this this year's APA Convention was to be presented with, the Div. 32 Distinguished Lifetime Contributions Award, of which there have been only three previous recipients. He was dealing with very serious health issues at the time of the announcement of this award and called it, “icing on the cake” when I wrote to him that he had received it. I am proud to have been the one who nominated him for this honor and glad he knew he had received it while he was still alive and able to derive some measure of satisfaction from it.
SOME PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
With all of his praise-worthy academic, clinical, scholarly, and service accomplishments, what stands out most to me about Mark Stern was his ability to relate well to all kinds of people in a sensitive, caring, generous, and gracious manner. He managed to successfully combine a calm patrician air of culture and civility in his personality with an earthy ability to sniff out and confront pretense, manipulation, and inauthenticity. He seemed only moderately more comfortable discussing the most high-minded intellectual topics than he did using foul language to describe a political injustice or someone he couldn't stand. With me, at least, he was authentic through and through, which was one of the reasons we got along so well and never had more than minor academic disagreements about anything in all the years I knew him.
I am convinced that his encounter group days and time spent with the likes of Laura Perls, Paul Goodman, and Isador From, as well as so many others, contributed to his no-nonsense ability to be direct and unafraid of taking an oppositional stance when needed.
Mark fought for the underdog, sympathizing with those everywhere in the world struggling for political liberation and personal freedom. He believed in the dignity of each individual in his/her fight to construct personal meaning and reconcile the inherent opposites and existential givens in life.
Beginning in the early nineties, Mark mentored a number of those of my generation, helping us enter the divisional governing structure of APA and taking our place in serving our profession. He was widely respected by most everyone who served the Society and APA governing structure.
My early contact with him in the late seventies and eighties was as an editor to whom I submitted articles for publication in Voices, which led to an ongoing correspondence around topics of mutual interest. But our relationship jelled when he was elected President of Division 32 in 1990. He asked me to be the Div. 32 Program Chair for the APA Convention to be held in San Francisco in 1991. I accepted the position under the condition that I would be allowed to shape the program as I wished. He consented, and Mark and I, along with Ilene Serlin, who I asked to chair the hospitality suite, fashioned a transpersonal psychology emphasis that brought the largest number of humanistic/transpersonal seminars, papers, and presenters that had ever appeared at an APA Convention.
About this same time, when we were visiting New York for a workshop I was presenting at the Omega Institute, Mark graciously invited my wife and I to join him and his wife Virginia for lunch (to celebrate my wife's birthday) at an exclusive and private social club in the city of which he was a long-time member. It was after this experience that I realized Mark acted like a patrician because he was one. Although I never asked him for details, it became apparent that there was more in his family inheritance history than he openly discussed.
Mark was always supportive of my writing, always encouraging of my work. He graciously asked me to sit on editorial boards for two of his journals. And I know he showed this same kind of support for many other psychologists and students. He had an open, kind, and gentle loving way that encouraged others to be themselves. Rarely do I remember his ego getting in the way of his graciousness or good judgment.
This last year I knew Mark had been challenged with serious medical problems. When I heard he was going to give the keynote at the Existential-Humanistic Institute Conference in San Francisco in mid-November, I told my wife we were going to go up to visit him. I knew time was not on his side. I managed to arrive in time to hear the last half of his address and took what may be the only existing video snippet of his last presentation. As anyone who was there will confirm, that he could manage to read his entire paper and answer questions for an hour-and-a-half presentation was a testament to his inner strength and courage.
We were able to spend a few final hours in dialogue together over a couple of days. His short-term memory for names was almost entirely absent and he had problems orienting himself in time. Despite these symptoms, it was shocking when I later learned from him that he had been diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor. He should never have made the trip, but I was very grateful that he did.
In one of his final e-mails to me, he wrote,
So my story has now been overly engaged. I frankly see the universe as more vital than the limited confusion that maintains terrors. So, seeing you was a bit of an extra job, which I would so much have worded joy. You and your wife are dear friends. I spend much time in bed and on medications. Have real question for how to discern my present being.
Thank you, my friend, for what you contributed to my life and the lives of so many others. You lived a very full life, with a loving wife, children, and grandchildren, travel, cultural enrichment and many friends and admirers. This world was a better place because of your being. May your disembodied soul now soar to the heavens, as you always knew it would.
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Steven J. Hendlin
Steven Hendlin, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in independent practice in Newport Beach, California. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. He may be reached at www.Hendlin.netREFERENCE
- Stern , E. M. ( 1982 ). Doctor: Heal thyself . Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy , 17 ( 4 ), 2 – 5 .