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Rue Cromwell:
A Color Biography in Two Parts
By Robert Hadden Mole
Vol. 9, Issue 1
(Spring 2005)
PART II of II / Go to Part I
Photo of Rue Cromwell Receiving Award
This year, CPN honors the work of
Rue Cromwell by bestowing on him its Lifetime Achievement Award.
At the Gala Banquet of the Memphis conference, Dr. Cromwell was
presented the award by one of his former students, Dr. Ken Sewell.
When approached by the Chronicle
for biographical information, Dr. Cromwell indicated that he was
willing to share a ‘color’ autobiography. Part I of this piece
appeared in Volume 8, Issue 2 of the Constructivist Chronicle.
Part II, below, concludes the piece.
Cromwell’s earlier intern contact in the VA program left him greatly interested in people diagnosed with schizophrenia. In 1959 Cromwell completed a sabbatical period with David Shakow and his schizophrenia research group at NIMH in Bethesda, Maryland. This interest finally led Cromwell to leave Peabody in 1961, go across the street, and become Director of Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. With dual appointments this gave Cromwell access to graduate student advisees from both Vanderbilt University and Peabody College (plus medical students and psychiatric residents). Guided partly by availability of funding the core program in schizophrenia research expanded to diagnosis, treatment, and outcome of 500 emotionally disturbed children in 21 different treatment centers throughout the U.S.A. and Canada. Also launched was a study of stress, nursing care, and outcome predictive factors in 327 acute coronary care (myocardial infarction) patients. Over the years attention was also paid to the effects of psychopharmacological treatments with hyperactive children and the psychiatrically ill.
The 1960s was a tumultuous time nationally. The U. S. State Department blocked passage for scientists of Communist persuasion to visit the country. Cromwell applied for a British psychologist who was Communist to speak at an international symposium on mental retardation. It was disapproved. Cromwell countered by next inviting a Moscow Communist and a British conservative. These were approved. Then, on appeal, Cromwell reapplied for the British Communist and won a reversal of decision. It was the first British Communist psychologist (Neil O’Connor) to be admitted into America during this era. Also, Cromwell, along with other civil rights participations, created and headed a charitable fund to cover bail and legal expenses for whites arrested in sit-in and other demonstrations in Nashville (the blacks being covered by the NAACP). Later, during this decade Cromwell found himself heading a lobby fight in the Tennessee legislature to kill a bill advanced by psychiatry practitioners to repeal the Tennessee licensing law for psychology. [In this very same Capitol lobby in 1920 women had fought and won the final required state ratification for the right to vote.] In this lobbying struggle Cromwell was warmly supported by the respective Chairs of the Vanderbilt medical school departments (including psychiatry). For either appreciation or punishment for this work, Cromwell jokes, he was elected President of the Tennessee Psychological Association.
In 1969 Cromwell moved to Lafayette Clinic, Wayne State University, Detroit, to become Professor and Director of a large Division of Psychology. This move opened opportunities to expand research interest in computer-assisted techniques in psychological assessment, including administration and analysis of the Kelly Rep Grid. The Lafayette Clinic position provided the opportunity to serve on an interdisciplinary team committed specifically to research in schizophrenia. Finally, also, Cromwell seized the opportunity to set up a longitudinal study of the prebirth, birth, and postbirth of offspring of Swedish pregnant schizophrenic women at the University of Lund in Malmų.
Then in 1972 Cromwell was invited to accept the position as Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. The position was much coveted at the time since the Psychiatry Department at Rochester had a psychosocial orientation in its teaching and had removed the degree titles, public labels and privilege indicators, and pay scale differences that distinguished psychiatry and psychology. [This environment had arisen greatly from the close relationship of the Chair, John Romano, with eminent psychologists.] The Rochester position allowed Cromwell’s research team to have postdoctoral fellows in computer science and genetics. Research focused upon the Kelly rep grid and Shadow’s reaction time crossover phenomenon. For example, a postdoc fellow from Holland, Peter Dingemans, was able to show through repeated rep grid testings of schizophrenic and depressed patients that so-called thought disorder in schizophrenia was actually attributable to brief “disattention epochs” wherein the patient could not comply appropriately with instructions or attend to questions. During periods between epochs the schizophrenic patents were more consistent and coherent than hospitalized depressives. In experimental support of Rowe’s clinical findings, the hospitalized depressed differed from normals more in extent of alienation than in indices of mood or self esteem.
Upon arrival in Rochester Cromwell was also appointed to direct another schizophrenia high-risk project. This one involved investigators of several disciplines following over a number of years the progress of children living in households where at least one parent was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In addition to these research examples the opportunity was also presented for Rue to prepare critical papers regarding strategies for psychiatric nosology and for diagnostic classification of children.
In 1986 Cromwell accepted the M. Erik Wright Distinguished Professorship in Clinical Psychology at the University of Kansas. This move had the advantages of being based primarily in a psychology department where students were best trained in statistics and research methodology. A disadvantage was to have his work removed from large psychiatric and other populations and from interdisciplinary research teams. Interest in schizophrenia turned to work relevant to alternative genetic models. Research efforts indicated that specific perceptual deficits relevant to certain schizophrenic patents were not widely distributed in the general population. So, they failed to serve as a marker for study. The model of schizophrenia which included at least one genetic factor rare in the human population and at least one factor broadly distributed in the population plus the necessary environmental variance appeared to be a superior model to either a monogenic or polygenic model.
Research topics expanded to PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), childhood physical and sexual abuse, and aspects of mood disorders and mood disturbance. Among various findings Sewell’s examination of Vietnam combat veterans and also survivors of a massive killing by a gunman entering a crowded restaurant suggested dissociative and curtailed elaboration of hierarchical thought appear to be identifiable and most efficiently measured on the rep grid.
Retiring in 2001,
Cromwell received the 2002 Zubin Award for lifetime achievement in
psychopathology research, and the 2004 the award for lifetime
achievement for research and mentoring by the Constructivist
Psychology Network. A large gulf exists between the valid working
constructs of these two research areas. Yet each area is an attempt
to understand the vicissitudes and workings of humankind.
Retirement has provided time for Cromwell to pursue a long held interest in how great researchers and scholars develop constructs. Knowledge domains exist because each individual uses his or her own fragile and partly flawed tools of construct-building to make an advance. The wise workers within each domain tend to treat each advance with doubt.
The advances within each knowledge domain coalesce, and the gulfs between domains become sacrosanct markers of identity. One flaw in our thinking is that the gulfs will be there forever. As individual achievements are made and assimilated into the whole, the second and spectacular flaw of humankind has been to throw off doubt and to assign a status of unvarnished truth. We try not to remember the fragility, partial flaws, and doubt that went into the initial construct-building process. It feels well not to remember.
In reading Einstein’s own book on relativity one can not only get a glimpse of the brilliant theoretical product but also of the fragile process and doubt that went into the construct-building. For example, when his hypotheses about nature of light were eventually supported by empirical research his attitude appeared to be one of surprise and relief, not one of “I told you so.” In at least part of Einstein’s writings he recognized this human tendency to declare findings absolute and try not to remember the fragility, the flaws, and the doubt.
In general, we all, including the scientists, ride of a cloud when we follow the megalomanic flaw and declare something absolute. Everything is up to date in Kansas City. Here is the one and true religion. Capitalist democracy (or a form of communism if you will) is the best form of government the world will ever know. Physicists repeatedly say they have identified the ultimate particle, and we now can explain everything. There are no more searches necessary. But sometimes the cloud collapses and we become aware of the flaws and the fragility of construct-building and the initial doubt.
Einstein made clear, at least part of the time, that he recognized this human failing. When he did this he was able to set aside old “truths” and the human temptation to remove the doubt from memory. Cromwell concluded that this recognition was the only clear evidence of genius that Einstein displayed in the book. Otherwise, he was struggling with the same fragile and uncertain tools of construct’building that all of us have and use.
In the construct-building of successive human beings, each domain with separate rules and separated by the gulfs, a surprising series of knowledge domains have emerged from humankind through its history and prehistory. The progression includes art, religion, mathematics, music, government/law/justice, and, as the last kid on the block, science. Each has its own rules for construct building, yet each domain is built on the common platform of human endeavor. Cromwell now enjoys his primary interest in how contributors to knowledge develop their constructs. He argues that one need not be a physicist to study how a physicist builds constructs. On does not have to be a theologian to study how a theologian builds constructs. Au contraire. Only the psychologist with expertise in how human folk build constructs can develop an understanding of how the great contributors did it/do it. Psychologists must not be blinded by creative achievement and write it off as genius outside the realm of scientific study or independent understanding. Then, who knows, maybe some gulfs will close.
...end of Part II
Rue Cromwell (right) receives CPN's Lifetime Achievement Award from Kenneth Sewell at the 2004 conference in Memphis
Cromwell’s earlier intern contact in the VA program left him greatly interested in people diagnosed with schizophrenia. In 1959 Cromwell completed a sabbatical period with David Shakow and his schizophrenia research group at NIMH in Bethesda, Maryland. This interest finally led Cromwell to leave Peabody in 1961, go across the street, and become Director of Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. With dual appointments this gave Cromwell access to graduate student advisees from both Vanderbilt University and Peabody College (plus medical students and psychiatric residents). Guided partly by availability of funding the core program in schizophrenia research expanded to diagnosis, treatment, and outcome of 500 emotionally disturbed children in 21 different treatment centers throughout the U.S.A. and Canada. Also launched was a study of stress, nursing care, and outcome predictive factors in 327 acute coronary care (myocardial infarction) patients. Over the years attention was also paid to the effects of psychopharmacological treatments with hyperactive children and the psychiatrically ill.
The 1960s was a tumultuous time nationally. The U. S. State Department blocked passage for scientists of Communist persuasion to visit the country. Cromwell applied for a British psychologist who was Communist to speak at an international symposium on mental retardation. It was disapproved. Cromwell countered by next inviting a Moscow Communist and a British conservative. These were approved. Then, on appeal, Cromwell reapplied for the British Communist and won a reversal of decision. It was the first British Communist psychologist (Neil O’Connor) to be admitted into America during this era. Also, Cromwell, along with other civil rights participations, created and headed a charitable fund to cover bail and legal expenses for whites arrested in sit-in and other demonstrations in Nashville (the blacks being covered by the NAACP). Later, during this decade Cromwell found himself heading a lobby fight in the Tennessee legislature to kill a bill advanced by psychiatry practitioners to repeal the Tennessee licensing law for psychology. [In this very same Capitol lobby in 1920 women had fought and won the final required state ratification for the right to vote.] In this lobbying struggle Cromwell was warmly supported by the respective Chairs of the Vanderbilt medical school departments (including psychiatry). For either appreciation or punishment for this work, Cromwell jokes, he was elected President of the Tennessee Psychological Association.
In 1969 Cromwell moved to Lafayette Clinic, Wayne State University, Detroit, to become Professor and Director of a large Division of Psychology. This move opened opportunities to expand research interest in computer-assisted techniques in psychological assessment, including administration and analysis of the Kelly Rep Grid. The Lafayette Clinic position provided the opportunity to serve on an interdisciplinary team committed specifically to research in schizophrenia. Finally, also, Cromwell seized the opportunity to set up a longitudinal study of the prebirth, birth, and postbirth of offspring of Swedish pregnant schizophrenic women at the University of Lund in Malmų.
Then in 1972 Cromwell was invited to accept the position as Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Psychology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. The position was much coveted at the time since the Psychiatry Department at Rochester had a psychosocial orientation in its teaching and had removed the degree titles, public labels and privilege indicators, and pay scale differences that distinguished psychiatry and psychology. [This environment had arisen greatly from the close relationship of the Chair, John Romano, with eminent psychologists.] The Rochester position allowed Cromwell’s research team to have postdoctoral fellows in computer science and genetics. Research focused upon the Kelly rep grid and Shadow’s reaction time crossover phenomenon. For example, a postdoc fellow from Holland, Peter Dingemans, was able to show through repeated rep grid testings of schizophrenic and depressed patients that so-called thought disorder in schizophrenia was actually attributable to brief “disattention epochs” wherein the patient could not comply appropriately with instructions or attend to questions. During periods between epochs the schizophrenic patents were more consistent and coherent than hospitalized depressives. In experimental support of Rowe’s clinical findings, the hospitalized depressed differed from normals more in extent of alienation than in indices of mood or self esteem.
Upon arrival in Rochester Cromwell was also appointed to direct another schizophrenia high-risk project. This one involved investigators of several disciplines following over a number of years the progress of children living in households where at least one parent was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In addition to these research examples the opportunity was also presented for Rue to prepare critical papers regarding strategies for psychiatric nosology and for diagnostic classification of children.
In 1986 Cromwell accepted the M. Erik Wright Distinguished Professorship in Clinical Psychology at the University of Kansas. This move had the advantages of being based primarily in a psychology department where students were best trained in statistics and research methodology. A disadvantage was to have his work removed from large psychiatric and other populations and from interdisciplinary research teams. Interest in schizophrenia turned to work relevant to alternative genetic models. Research efforts indicated that specific perceptual deficits relevant to certain schizophrenic patents were not widely distributed in the general population. So, they failed to serve as a marker for study. The model of schizophrenia which included at least one genetic factor rare in the human population and at least one factor broadly distributed in the population plus the necessary environmental variance appeared to be a superior model to either a monogenic or polygenic model.
Research topics expanded to PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), childhood physical and sexual abuse, and aspects of mood disorders and mood disturbance. Among various findings Sewell’s examination of Vietnam combat veterans and also survivors of a massive killing by a gunman entering a crowded restaurant suggested dissociative and curtailed elaboration of hierarchical thought appear to be identifiable and most efficiently measured on the rep grid.
***
Retirement has provided time for Cromwell to pursue a long held interest in how great researchers and scholars develop constructs. Knowledge domains exist because each individual uses his or her own fragile and partly flawed tools of construct-building to make an advance. The wise workers within each domain tend to treat each advance with doubt.
The advances within each knowledge domain coalesce, and the gulfs between domains become sacrosanct markers of identity. One flaw in our thinking is that the gulfs will be there forever. As individual achievements are made and assimilated into the whole, the second and spectacular flaw of humankind has been to throw off doubt and to assign a status of unvarnished truth. We try not to remember the fragility, partial flaws, and doubt that went into the initial construct-building process. It feels well not to remember.
In reading Einstein’s own book on relativity one can not only get a glimpse of the brilliant theoretical product but also of the fragile process and doubt that went into the construct-building. For example, when his hypotheses about nature of light were eventually supported by empirical research his attitude appeared to be one of surprise and relief, not one of “I told you so.” In at least part of Einstein’s writings he recognized this human tendency to declare findings absolute and try not to remember the fragility, the flaws, and the doubt.
In general, we all, including the scientists, ride of a cloud when we follow the megalomanic flaw and declare something absolute. Everything is up to date in Kansas City. Here is the one and true religion. Capitalist democracy (or a form of communism if you will) is the best form of government the world will ever know. Physicists repeatedly say they have identified the ultimate particle, and we now can explain everything. There are no more searches necessary. But sometimes the cloud collapses and we become aware of the flaws and the fragility of construct-building and the initial doubt.
Einstein made clear, at least part of the time, that he recognized this human failing. When he did this he was able to set aside old “truths” and the human temptation to remove the doubt from memory. Cromwell concluded that this recognition was the only clear evidence of genius that Einstein displayed in the book. Otherwise, he was struggling with the same fragile and uncertain tools of construct’building that all of us have and use.
In the construct-building of successive human beings, each domain with separate rules and separated by the gulfs, a surprising series of knowledge domains have emerged from humankind through its history and prehistory. The progression includes art, religion, mathematics, music, government/law/justice, and, as the last kid on the block, science. Each has its own rules for construct building, yet each domain is built on the common platform of human endeavor. Cromwell now enjoys his primary interest in how contributors to knowledge develop their constructs. He argues that one need not be a physicist to study how a physicist builds constructs. On does not have to be a theologian to study how a theologian builds constructs. Au contraire. Only the psychologist with expertise in how human folk build constructs can develop an understanding of how the great contributors did it/do it. Psychologists must not be blinded by creative achievement and write it off as genius outside the realm of scientific study or independent understanding. Then, who knows, maybe some gulfs will close.
...end of Part II
Rue Cromwell (right) receives CPN's Lifetime Achievement Award from Kenneth Sewell at the 2004 conference in Memphis