Linda Olds

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Linda E. Olds (1946 (?))is an American psychologist, consultant, trainer, professor at Linfield College and pioneer in the field of systems psychology.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Linda Olds studied clinical psychology and community psychology and received a B.A. at the Oberlin College in 1968, an M.A. in 1970 from the University of Cincinnati, and a Ph.D. in 1976 at the University of Cincinnati. Later she did postdoctoral research at the Pacific School of Religion and UC Berkeley in 1987. She was a research fellow at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion, University of Chicago Divinity School in 1981, and at the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, at Yale University in 1991.

After studying at the University of Cincinnati in 1976 she worked several years as a counseling consulting and trainer at the University of Cincinnati Counseling Center, the Rollman Psychiatric Institute, at the Community Psychology Institute, the Children's Psychiatric Center in Cincinnati and at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.

She is a member of the Western Psychology Association, the Association of Women in Psychology, and the American Academy of Religion. And she has been an invited speaker at the Washington State University, the Alaska Pacific University, the University of Oregon, and Reed College, and the Mary McConnell Symposium on Religion and Science.[1]

[edit] Work

Linda Olds' principle research interests derive from the fields of personality, cross-cultural, theoretical, philosophical, and trans-personal psychology. Her interests have focused on systems theory, models of self, and gender issues in psychology. And she has written and pursued interdisciplinary work integrating issues in psychology, religion, and consciousness, including most recently work on alchemy as a symbol system for human transformation, Individual and group therapy, community organizational consulting, considerable group work in wide variety of settings.[1]

[edit] Psychological and cultural androgyny

Olds' first book Fully Human from 1981 was concerning psychological and cultural androgyny, the integration of metaphorically masculine and feminine dimensions in personality and culture. Here she replicated and described Bem's findings of flexible sex-role behavior in androgynous individuals and traced the biographical development of androgynous individuals and finds patterns.[2]

[edit] Systems psychology

In Metaphors of Interrelatedness from 1992 Olds has been exploring systems theory as a unifying metaphor in psychology, science, and religion. She has been developing a wider framework for systems psychology and a sufficient foundation to both practical and ethical aspects of human perception of nature by examining a variety of non-Western and contemporary ontological metaphors of interrelatedness.[3] Olds acknowledged a vertical striving of power, achievements, knowledge and accomplishment.[4] She stated that "we no longer inhabit a universe capable of being represented vertically alone; the embeddedness of us all in an intricately interrelating dance of energy and spacetime of connection and change, has become the inescapable heritage of our time. We must reach out for horizontal metaphors which speak the language of embrace and interconnection, rather than striving and rising above".[5]

From the time of Aristotle's Poetics, metaphors has been considered a powerful tool for viewing and making sense of the word in which we live in. It helps us making sense of the world and see new relationships. Theorists in any discipline are active synthesizes and constructors of knowledge. For them a powerful tool of inquiry can be that of metaphor, which Linda Olds called "an aid to creative theorizing and hypothesis construction. From Olds' psychology perspective metaphors and models of interrelatedness can play a vital role in guiding intuitions of wholeness and complexity into responsible dialogue with ongoing theoretical and research tradition.[6] "The task for us is to learn to witness the flow," Olds suggested. "We need to be able to be present at the whole array of feelings expressed by loved ones, including irritation and anger, without feeling responsible or guilty or even needing them to be different."[7]

[edit] Publications

Olds wrote two books and published several articles in interdisciplinary journals like Soundings, Listening, Contemporary Philosophy, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, and Issues in Integrative Studies.

  • 1981, Fully Human, Prentice-Hall.
  • 1992, Metaphors of Interrelatedness, State University of New York Press.

Articles, a selection:

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Linda Olds, Short biography, homepage of the Linfield Department of Psychology, retrieved 31 March 2008
  2. ^ Gayle Kimball (1983), The 50/50 Marriage. Beacon Press. ISBN 080702726X Page 244.
  3. ^ Susantha Goonatilake (1998), Toward a Global Science: Mining Civilizational Knowledge. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253211824. Page 245
  4. ^ Claudia H. Johnson (2005), Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect. Focal Press. ISBN 0240806417 page 5.
  5. ^ Linda Olds (1992), Metaphors of Interrelatedness, State University of New York Press. Page xii.
  6. ^ Helen Christiansen (1997), Recreating Relationships: Collaboration and Educational Reform, SUNY Press ISBN 079143303X, page 30.
  7. ^ Susan K. Perry (2003), "How to Stop Fighting", an expert from: Loving in Flow: How the Happiest Couples Get and Stay That Way, by Susan K. Perry. Sourcebooks, Inc, retrieved 31 March 2008.

[edit] External links

  • Homepage Linfield Department of Psychology.