Name Martin Grossack Role Psychologist | Died September 28, 2000 | |
Books Love, Sex and Self-fulfillment: Keys to Successful Living, Consumer Psychology: Theory and Practice | ||
Martin Grossack (June 11, 1928 in Hull, Massachusetts – September 28, 2000) was an American psychologist and author.
Contents
Grossack was known worldwide for his books and writings in the field of psychology. Married to Judith Grossack, the couple had one son named David Grossack, who also worked in the field. Martin Grossack died on September 28th, 2000, at the age of 73 years old.
Early life
Martin Grossack was the son of Albert and Rose Grossack, both immigrants from Bobruisk, Byelorussia. Albert and his mother Hannah reportedly escaped Czarist, Russia by smuggling themselves past border guards and sailing from Rotterdam, Netherlands to New York City. At age 14, Albert arrived in Boston, Massachusetts where he worked in the food and beverage wholesale distribution business. Later he opened his own grocery and wine store in the Allston neighborhood.
Grossack attended Boston public school, graduating from Roxbury Memorial High School. He attended Northeastern University and Boston University, where he received a Doctorate in Social Psychology. In the summer of 1951, he married a psychology student from Brandeis University, Judith Trachtenberg. Trachtenberg was also a child of immigrants. After a receiving a commission, Grossack joined the United States Air Force, entering the service as a Lieutenant and served as a psychologist during the Korean War.
Career in Psychology
Grossack spent a year as a faculty of University of Hawaii where his first son, David Grossack was born in 1956. Ultimately family ties led the Grossack family back to Boston, and they settled in the quiet seaside resort community of Hull, near Nantasket Beach. His second son, Richard (Rocky) was born in 1959. Both sons are practising attorneys in the Boston area.
Grossack's Little Rock experience led to his first book, Mental Health and Segregation, published by Springer in New York in 1963. The book gave a complete picture of the African-American condition prior to the Civil Rights Movement. They documented the consequences of segregation on personality, morale, school adjustment, emotional problems, and problems presented by clinical practitioners. The book was well received and helped to establish his career in academia.
Grossack taught at Boston State College and Suffolk University, and would soon be an author of You Are Not Alone, a popular self-help psychology book published by Signet which had numerous editions. You Are Not Alone provided guidance for individual mental health problems in the context of what the author labelled as a "sick society." Grossack, believing that social conditions contributed to the mental health problems, was convinced that changes were needed in society to help each individual fulfil his or her own potential and to enjoy their lives better.
Major American corporations became interested in Grossack's research on the psychology of advertising. Christopher Publishing House released Understanding Consumer Behavior in 1964; and Grossack became involved with companies such as Pillsbury, Boston Edison, Gillette, Union Carbide and numerous advertising agencies as a consultant. His book Consumer Psychology For Humanized Bank Marketing was published in 1971, and with it, Grossack became an authority on applied motivational research in banking. A social psychology textbook, which he co-authored with Howard Gardner, Man and Men: Social Psychology as Social Science, was published by International Textbook Company, and was widely used in schools.
In the late 1970s, Grossack turned his attention to the founding of a clinic known as the Institute For Rational Living which he had founded in Copley Square in Boston. The IRL, as it was called, offered what Grossack called "rational self-therapy" to patients, with an emphasis on encountering and group therapies. Classes in Creative Contacts for Singles, Coping with Anxiety and Depression, and Self Hypnosis made the IRL an attractive place for learning and personal growth. Moreover, the IRL broke new grounds by offering couples counselling to gays and therapy to persons with transgender and sexual identity issues.
Death
Grossack's final book was Love, Sex, and Self-Fulfillment, released by Signet in 1978. In his later years, Grossack chose to spend time with his family and grandchildren. Illness struck repeatedly, and he died of cancer on September 28, 2000, at the age of 73.