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Research Interests
Generally under the heading of studies related to grief and stress, Wortman's major research interests include "coping with stressful life experiences across the life span, with special emphasis on bereavement"; and "long term sequaela of acute and chronic stress". She also in interested in how people cope with the "sudden, traumatic death" of a family member, specifically when a parent loses a baby to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). This research has also led to focus on the developing interventions for those who have experienced a "sudden, traumatic" loss of a family member. Throughout her career, she has also done research on "gender differences in reaction to stress and loss" and the role of social support and coping strategies in "ameliorating the impact of stress and loss" (Vitae, 2002).
Schooling
Published information about Camille Wortman's life begins chronologically during her college years. She completed all of her college education at Duke University, culminating in 1972 with a doctoral degree in psychology, also with minor work at the Duke University School of Law. As for her undergraduate career, Wortman graduated summa cum laude and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She progressed through school rather quickly, graduating with a B.A. in psychology in 1969, and then completing a M.A. in psychology in 1970. She received distinction as a doctoral student by receiving the National Institute of Mental Health Predoctoral Research Fellow.
Career History
Wortman began her career as an assistant professor at Northwestern University in 1972. She received two research grants during her time there. The National Science Foundation supported her work on reactions to stressful life events. She also received funding to study how parents cope with the death of an infant to SIDS. This was the beginning of a long term project, for Wortman has published on this topic as recently as 1993. Wortman received a distinguished teacher award from Northwestern University in 1976 and was promoted to associate professor in 1977.
That same year, Camille Wortman moved to the University of Michigan to be an associate professor of psychology. She continued her research on how parents cope with the loss of an infant to SIDS and also studied the "long-term effects of losing a spouse or child in a motor vehicle crash" (Vitae, 2002). One study pointed to the benefit of self- blame when a child dies, for it helps the person that is grieving maintain a belief in an "orderly, controllable" world (referred to in Downey, Silver and Wortman, 1990). This can help "restore a sense of well-being". Wortman also researched "how men and women balance the demands of family and work" (Vitae, 2002). She also was Co- Principal Investigator on a grant researching "how gay men cope with the crisis of AIDS".
However, her major research interest then and presently focuses on "how people react to the death of a family member". While at Michigan, she was one of seven researchers that studied successful aging. She headed one of the five parts of the five-year study. Wortman's section was a "prospective study of widowhood among the elderly" and she also received another grant to study the "physiological parameters" of the study.
In 1980, Wortman received a large distinction that has placed her in books studying women and psychology. She was awarded the Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution in Psychology from the American Psychological Association. This award is given to people who have not had their doctorate for more than nine years. Agnes N. O'Conner and Nancy Felipe Russo cite the reasons why she was given this award:
For providing stimulating and influential analyses of how people react to uncontrollable outcomes and cope with undesirable life events; for illuminating how causal attributions made by accident victims influence the success or failure of their adaptation; for brilliantly clarifying how coping by victims is made more difficult by well-intentioned others who are simultaneously motivated to be supportive and threatened by the victim's status; and, in general, for enriching social psychological theory and research and bringing it to bear on an exciting range of real life problems with important clinical implications (O'Conner and Russo, 1990).
As of 1989, Wortman was one of only thirteen women to receive this award. Out of forty- three awards, that leaves only 30% of the awards bestowed upon women.
Wortman was promoted to professor and program director for the Research Center for Group Dynamics in 1983 (Vitae, 2002). She remained at Michigan until 1990 when she moved to the State University of New York- Stony Brook to be a professor of psychology and director of the Social/Health Psychology Graduate Training Program. Her research on how people react to the death of a family member continued in New York. As she started at Stony Brook, she received a grant to continue the prospective study on widowhood. This study is called the Changing Lives of Older Couples Study and various aspects of this study are still in progress (CLOC website, 2002).
In the past five years, Wortman's focus has been on developing treatment for "survivors of sudden, traumatic loss" (Vitae, 2002). This is currently the goal of her research. She has lectured at eleven international conferences and at numerous national lectures, both for the psychological community and lay people alike. She is also a member of various committees and boards that focus on coping, stress and grief.
Articles and Other Written Work
It would be incomplete to have a biography on Camille Wortman (particularly focused on her career) and not discuss some of her written work. As of October 2002, Wortman has written fifty-one journal articles, thirty-six chapters in various books, one book and one psychology textbook. Some findings of her studies and articles suggest:
In patients with spinal cord injuries, there is quite an inconsistency in attribution of injury. Some patients who blamed themselves had injured themselves doing something high-risk such as skydiving, while others who were hit by a drunken driver also attributed responsibility to themselves (Bulman and Wortman, 1977 in Downey, Silver and Wortman, 1990). Attributing a child's death of SIDS to self, someone else, God or chance did not predict "changes in psychological distress" for the parents studied. There does not seem to be a causal connection between attribution and adjustment (Downey, Silver, and Wortman, 1990).
The general assumption that the coping process should unfold in a particular way can cause outsiders to evaluate or judge those who do not conform to the 'typical' way of coping. If people believe someone should recover relatively quickly after a loss, these outsiders may react judgmentally to those that are continuing to show signs of distress. Those who have lost someone may impose the same types of judgment on themselves, believing they have "underlying problems or pathology", if they have these same assumptions about loss (Silver and Wortman, 1980 in Wortman and Silver, 1989). Those who do not show distress shortly after losing a loved one will not show "subsequent difficulties" (Wortman and Silver, 1989). It is not necessary to "work through" a loss. Parents of a child that had dies of SIDS who were "working through" a loss by trying to make sense of it, thinking of ways death could have been avoided and by being preoccupied by the loss, showed more distress three weeks after their baby had died. Those parents had the least amount of "emotional resolution" 18 months later (Silver and Wortman, 1988; Wortman and Silver, 1987 in Wortman and Silver, 1989). Individuals do not always achieve resolution after the death of a loved one (Wortman and Silver, 1989). Telling both imaginary-trauma stories and real-trauma stories correlated with positive health effects. Those telling imaginary-trauma stories enhance "affective regulation" and construct "more resilient possible selves" (who they could be when faced with unsatisfactory situations) (Greenberg, Wortman and Stone, 1996).
Much of her work aims at creating a more realistic and accepting view of grief and loss.
Personal Information
Camille is married to Paul M. Wortman, a professor emeritus of psychology at the State University of New York- Stony Brook. His research focuses on applied social psychology, health, judgment and decision making, and research methods and assessment (SUNY website, 2002). He taught and researched at Northwestern, University of Michigan, and Stony Brook during the same periods that Camille did, suggesting that Paul and Camille were married before or while at Northwestern University (AOL Search: "Paul Wortman", 2002). Paul retired in April 2001. Most personal information about both of them is unknown.
Conclusion
The primary goal of Wortman's current research is to design an "effective intervention program for people who have experienced traumatic loss" (SUNY website, 2002). For the past five years, she has worked with Laurie Anne Pearlman and Therese Rando on this task. Along with Dr. Herbert Krauss, they received funding from the J.P. Morgan Foundation to "offer this treatment to those who lost loved ones in the World Trade Center catastrophe" (Vitae, 2002). Her work with those affected by the World Trade Center catastrophe makes the reason for her award in 1980 even more true today: for "bringing [her social psychological theory and research] to bear on an exciting range of real life problems with important clinical implications" (O'Conner and Russo, 1990).
References