Spencer A. Rathus

Numerous personal experiences enter into Spencer Rathus's textbooks. He was the first member of his family to go to college and found college textbooks to be cold and intimidating. When his opportunity arrived to write college textbooks, he wanted them to be different--warm and encouraging, especially to students who were also the first generation in their families to be entering college. Rathus's first professional experience was teaching high school English. Part of the task of the high school teacher is to motivate students. Through this experience he learned the importance of humor and personal stories, which later became part of his textbook approach. Rathus wrote poetry and novels while he was an English teacher--and some of the poetry was published in poetry journals. The novels never saw the light of day--which Rathus admits has saved him a great deal of embarrassment. Rathus earned his Ph.D. in psychology and then entered clinical practice and teaching. He has published research articles in journals such as Behavior Therapy, Journal of Clinical Psychology, Behaviour Research and Therapy, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, Adolescence, and Criminology. His research interests lie in the areas of human growth and development, psychological disorders, methods of therapy, and psychological assessment. Rathus has since poured his energies into writing textbooks in introductory psychology, developmental psychology, the psychology of adjustment, human sexuality, and abnormal psychology. He has taught at Northeastern University, St. John's University, New York University, and The College of New Jersey. His professional activities include service on the American Psychological Association Task Force on Diversity Issues at the Precollege and Undergraduate Levels of Education in Psychology, and on the Advisory Panel, American Psychological Association, Board of Educational Affairs (BEA) Task Force on Undergraduate Psychology Major Competencies. Rathus is proud of his family. His wife, Lois Fichner-Rathus, is a successful textbook author and a professor of art history. His daughter Allyn is a teacher in New York City. His daughter Jordan is enrolled in an M.F.A. program, with specialization in video art. Rathus's youngest daughter, Taylor, is a musical theatre major and can dance the pants off of both of them. Rathus's eldest daughter, Jill, is also a psychologist.