| Women's Intellectual Contributions to the Study of Mind and Society Students, as part of an advanced seminar, examined and wrote about the lives of these women, their intellectual contributions, and the unique impact and special problems that being female had on their careers. |  |
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Because Johnson was born during the depression, she witnessed her parents struggle to find a way to pay the bills and their decision-making process for how to decide which, if any, bills to pay. During this time, the family was forced to eat bananas and spaghetti to survive (O'Connell, p. 81). Education was important in her family, including educating women. In fact, Johnson's great-grandmother was the fourth woman in their state to graduate from college.
Johnson makes it known that the women in her life have done much to influence the path her life has taken. Johnson's mother was a "college graduate, a journalist, a social worker, and later a teacher" (O'Connell, p. 82). She also spent a good deal of time in Fruitville, Florida, helping the children of migrant workers enroll in school for the season they were in town. However, her grandmother, Verna Gentry Collins Derby, was the woman to have the biggest influence on her life. Derby married at 16, and by the time she was 28, she had four children, ages 8 to 18 months. During this time, her husband, a police officer, was killed in an ambush. After half a year of living a nearly comatose existence, paralyzed by depression, Derby decided to "get on with it" and picked up and moved her family to Louisville, Kentucky so that she could attend nursing school. It is the sight of a picture of her struggling grandmother in her nurse's uniform that gives Johnson the guiding questions that she has used in her career. Some of these questions include: Where do women with few material resources find the strength to persevere and succeed while maintaining families and friends? and How can we as a society, as a profession, develop the knowledge base and skills to help young girls and women develop these strengths? (O'Connell, p. 82).
Johnson attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana because of its reputation "for providing an outstanding liberal arts education and its well-respected psychology department" (O'Connell, p. 83). Even though it was liberal, its admittance policies were still fraught with sexism. For example, at that time DePauw accepted applications from men in the top one-half of their class, but only accepted applications from women who were in the top one-third of their class. Also, "scholarships were for men" (O'Connell, p. 83).
Like many other women, after college she married and put her career on hold in favor of starting a family and building her husband's career. Her husband's job required the family to move every 18 months or so both of her children were born in different cities. Also like many other women, Johnson found the integration of her personal and professional life very difficult. In the beginning, she tried not to let these two aspects of her life cross each-other and she considered herself "equally devoted to both and loved both with a passion" (O'Connell, p. 83).
In the summer of 1964, she enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan in the clinical psychology program. She received a National Institute of Mental Health scholarship that helped to give her confidence in her ability and allowed her to pay for her books and quality child care (O'Connell, p. 84). She graduated in 1972 with a doctorate in psychology, a major in clinical psychology, and a minor in child development.
During her second year at Wayne, she went into labor the morning of her last final that semester over analysis of variance. She went into school and persuaded her teacher to let her take the three-hour final in a private room, then she went to the hospital and delivered her new daughter.
She then moved to Cleveland, Ohio and started a clinical internship specializing in child psychology. After her internship, she was asked to stay for a year as a consultant to pediatrics, endocrinology and neurology. This made her the fist "pediatric psychologist" at University Hospitals.
In the clinics, she saw over 200 patients a day. Her duties included making "screening measures for depression, anxiety, parenting, and other psychological conditions" and applying them to the population. Because of her husband's career move to Boston, however, she had to leave the position after only nine months.
After a year of adjustment in Boston, Johnson took a position as Director of Psychology at Kennedy Memorial Hospital for Children. Finally feeling settled, she stayed in this position until 1988-- for 18 years. This program's level of national recognition, she had the opportunity to become a teacher, like a special woman in her life, her mother. At this time, she also began her own private practice.
She developed a program sponsored by Harvard University called "Women Administrators." After this, she was offered the position as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at Boston University Medical School. She still holds this position and actively taught for 12 years. In this position, she has taught "neurology, pediatric, and orthopedic medical students, interns and residents" (O'Connell, p. 87).
Her independent practice took full-focus now and she left her paid position to go off into the dark unknown of self-employment. She started a school for children with neurological dysfunction that allowed the children to stay in their community instead of "having to go to a hospital, residential home, or a day school" (O'Connell, p. 88).
According to Models of Achievement: Reflections of Eminent Women in Psychology (2001), Johnson currently has four psychology businesses, ABCS (Affect, Behavior, Cognition, Systems) Psych Resources, Access for Change, JPP (Johnson, Portnoy, & Pollack) Consultants: Business Practices for Professions, and W2W (Woman to Woman). ABCS is an assessment, therapeutic and consultative service for families and educational systems. Access for Change is a "group practice that was designed to give us flexibility to meet the changing health care climate under managed care" that uses a "partnership model of psychotherapy developed from the current research on valuing diversity and building strengths and integrating cognitive, feminist, and family therapy" (O'Connell, p. 89). JPP Consultants: Business Practices for Professionals offers "consultation and continuing education to individuals and groups seeking to learn how to develop thriving professional practices" (O'Connell, p. 89). And W2W was developed by eminent women in psychology to are "dedicated to the development and dissemination of quality products specifically designed to build strengths, promote health, and enhance quality living for today's woman while having fun" (O'Connell, p. 89).
Norine Johnson, however, has provided much more for the psychological community. She and Judith Worell came up with the idea of a National Conference on Feminist Practice. She was also instrumental in the development of the National Conference on Education and Training in Feminist Practice at Boston College in 1993.
In 1997, she published Shaping the Future of Feminist Psychology (Worell & Johnson, 1997), that was basically a summary of the Boston College conference. This book was accepted into the APA's Division 35 book series. Concepts that came from that conference include: "that feminist practice is extensive and includes a breadth of interventions; that a feminist science and theory underpin feminist practice; that diversity is a primary value of feminist practice; and that there is a distinct, identifiable feminist practice" (O'Connell, p. 90).
Johnson developed a Strengths Inventory Assessment measure and the Partnership Model for the treatment of women through taking strengths from the "foremothers of feminist therapy, women of color and... the recent work on feminist therapy from the national conference" (O'Connell, p. 90).
Johnson also helped to pen a book for adolescent girls and their mothers titled Beyond Appearance: A New Look at Adolescent Girls.
She believes that her prolific work has been influenced by having a good business plan, recognizing the gender differences she will face in her field, practice the idea that good business is good client care and that networking, partnerships and group practice are all vital in today's health care climate.
In 2001, she was elected to the presidency of the American Psychological Association. Out of 112 years of the APA, she was only the ninth woman president. One of her top concerns as president was to provide a better future for psychology students and graduates. She also wanted to "expand opportunities for psychology research and practice." She considers Division 35, the Psychology of Women, her home in the APA. Over her career, Johnson has worked with over 900 clients and believes that she is lucky to have been able to learn while doing important work (O'Connell, p. 93). She believes that throughout her career, she has focused on strengths and using feminist process and brought in new frameworks for children, adolescent girls and women (O'Connell, p. 94).
Norine G. Johnson's Professional Achievements Include: