Bert Kaplan

Born February 16, 1919Passed away July 21, 2006

Bert Kaplan, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UCSC, died at his home Friday morning of natural causes. He was 87. A member of UCSC's founding faculty, he lived in Santa Cruz since 1965, and influenced the intellectual development of the campus in its early years, until his retirement in 1989.

Born in New York's lower east side, Kaplan attended Brooklyn College, where he majored in Psychology before entering the Army. During World War II, he was stationed in Okinawa and treated soldiers afflicted with what was then called battle fatigue. The main method of treatment consisted of encouraging the soldiers to talk about their experience, and Kaplan remarked later that although psychologists now know much more about post-traumatic shock and other afflictions, for some reason the treatment seemed to help.

After serving in the Army, Kaplan was accepted to Harvard University's Department of Social Relations. He studied with Clyde Kluckholn, Henry Murray, and Talcott Parsons, and did research in the study of personality, which was at the time one of the newest trends in the field. His own research into the cross-cultural study of personality raised the question of whether it made sense to think of personality independently of culture. His doctoral dissertation, "Personality Studies of Four Cultures", examined personality tests given to members of four different cultures in the Southwest, including the Navajo and the Hopi. His work brought him prominence and success immediately and he was considered one of the most important of the post-war generation of psychologists. He taught for 10 years at the University of Kansas and 2 years at Rice University.

In 1964, Newsweek magazine did an article on his research on mental illness among the Navajo that became a turning point in his career. The magazine gave the article the unfortunate title, "The Sick Indians", and its depictions deeply offended some of the Navajo he had worked with. The experience left him disillusioned, and his career began to take a different direction. Although he had published several successful books, including Studying Personality Cross-Culturally, and the Inner-World of Mental Illness: First-Person Accounts of What it was Like, he basically stopped publishing. In the mid-1960's when he was approached by a major publisher to edit a book on the newly emerging subject of humanistic psychology, and he turned it down.

But he did not stop learning. The new UC campus at Santa Cruz offered an opportunity to think about education differently, and along with the other faculty of Cowell College, the new University's first college, Kaplan helped set the tone for an education that emphasized humanistic studies and an interdisciplinary approach to learning. He offered courses in Psychology and the Humanistic Disciples, Psychology of religion, and the Interpretation of Personal Documents. Students in his courses read Shakespeare, James Joyce, Plato, and St. Augustine and wrote journals. He once remarked that rather than trying to apply psychoanalysis to Shakespeare, as was popular at the time, we should realize that Shakespeare was himself the greatest psychologist and learn from him.

He pursued new things enthusiastically, and found ways to incorporate them in his own approach to psychology. When he was 50, he took up tennis, and then fencing under UCSC's great fencing coach, Charles Selberg. He offered a course on The Psychology of Physical Fitness. He explained that he was interested in psychology's "other principle." The dominant theory in psychology remains the pleasure principle- people seek pleasure and avoid pain. Kaplan was interested in why we desire things that we cannot have and that do not in fact bring pleasure. The pursuit of this question led him to study Plato's discussions of desire and the complex psychology of physical fitness. While at UCSC, he helped found a new type of graduate program, the History of Consciousness program. Although the name of the program was considered by some to represent UCSC's "far out" approach to education, the program was intended to bring together the humanities and social sciences in more sensible ways than conventional disciplines. He once remarked that the best thing about UCSC was that it was not on the make. He was less interested in the trappings of academic reputation and hierarchy, and helped create a teaching and learning environment that tried to do things right. He represented UCSC at its best.

He is survived by his wife Hermia and daughter Emily, both of Santa Cruz, his son in Granger, Indiana, Joshua, a sister, Sheila in Florida and his granddaughter Hannah in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Arrangements are under the direction of Benito & Azzaro Pacific Gardens Chapel 1050 Cayuga St. Santa Cruz, Ca. Donations are preferred to Hospice 940 Disc Dr. Scotts Valley, Ca 95066.

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