Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Sociological Practice [sopr] pp074-296875 February 16, 2001 12:21 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999
Sociological Practice: A Journal of Clinical and Applied Sociology, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2001
This paper discusses the rediscovery of clinical sociology in the 1970s and the
founding of the Clinical Sociology Association in 1978. The author recounts
his role in these events and traces their origin in his personal life.
KEY WORDS: clinical sociology; applied sociology; social intervention; humanist sociology;
sociological practice.
INTRODUCTION
1998 marked the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Clinical Soci-
ology (CSA) Association, now known as the Sociological Practice Associa-
tion. As one who was instrumental in the founding of CSA and who served
as its first president, I want to recall how this came about and share some
personal background that culminated in my organizing a roundtable discus-
sion on clinical sociology at the American Sociological Association (ASA)
meetings in New York on September 3, 1976. Until that time, there was no
organized movement to recognize and promote sociological practice.
75
1522-3442/01/0300-0075$19.50/0 °
C 2001 Plenum Publishing Corporation
P1: MRM/RKP P2: MRM
Sociological Practice [sopr] pp074-296875 February 16, 2001 12:21 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999
76 Glass
journal in the field. This discovery strongly justified and reinforced my inter-
est in clinical sociology. Wirth made a strong case for the significant role that
sociologists can and did play in the study, diagnosis, and treatment of person-
ality disorders. He emphasized the necessity of combining theoretical with
practical interests and gave examples of sociologists working in child guid-
ance clinics to bring their perspective together with that of the psychiatrist,
social worker, and psychologist.
I envisioned clinical sociology as the direct application of sociological
thinking and knowledge to problem solving and change at the individual,
group, organization, or community level. The clinical sociologist is essen-
tially a change agent rather than a researcher or evaluator. The intervention
may involve a redefinition of the self, role, or situation. Based on my fa-
miliarity with humanist psychology and sociology, educational innovation,
and applied behavioral science, I argued that clinical sociology’s value ori-
entation be humanistic, holistic, and multidisciplinary, and that sociological
concepts such as role, reality construction, norms, values, and culture be key
tools of clinical professionals. Here I was greatly influenced by my reading of
and contact with social psychologists and applied behavioral scientists such
as Warren Bennis, Chris Argyris, and Ronald Lippitt (Bennis et al. 1976) who
consulted and worked with organizational change. My chapter “Organiza-
tions and the Workplace” (Glass 1994) in Using Sociology (Straus 1985/1994)
reflects some of that influence.
For 4 years (1972–76) I was the only sociologist on the faculty of the
California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) in Los Angeles. While
coordinating a series of courses under the rubric of “Culture and Society”
and teaching psychology graduate students how to do community and or-
ganizational consulting, I realized the absurdity that we were not training
sociologists to do the same. Sociology has a central and legitimate role in
intervention and change facilitation that necessitates the consideration of
social systems (Glass 1991). For example, in Seymour Sarason’s influential
book The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change (Sarason 1971,
p. 12) he states
. . . individuals operate in various social settings that have a structure not compre-
hensible by our existing theories of individual personality. In fact, in many situations,
it is likely that one can predict an individual’s behavior far better on the basis of the
knowledge of the social structure and his position in it than one can on the basis of
his personal dynamics.
78 Glass
and unpublished manuscripts developed between 1931 and 1982. Jan Fritz
also contributed historical data in a number of issues of Clinical Sociol-
ogy Review and she and Elizabeth Clark coedited an issue of Sociological
Practice (Fritz and Clark 1989) containing nine articles on the history and
development of clinical and applied sociology. David Kallen, past president
of CSA and long time editor of the Clinical Sociology Review, is currently
working on a history of clinical sociology.
Let me now speak, more personally and biographically, about the ori-
gin of my interests that led to my conception of, and advocacy for, clinical
sociology. I see myself, as I suspect others who were founding members saw
themselves, as a marginal person, in the sociological sense developed by
Simmel and Stonequist. My “marginality” began with being born Jewish, in
Nazi Germany, in Berlin, in 1936. My parents, brother, and I were extremely
lucky, thanks to the Quakers, to finally leave Germany early in 1939. We
spent a year in England as refugees in transit waiting for our quota number
to come up. We sailed to New York in March of 1940 and moved to Chicago
a year later.
In 1945, my parents sent me to Circle Pines Center, an interracial ed-
ucational center and summer camp in Michigan, cooperatively owned by
its members, which celebrated its 60th anniversary in 1998. Circle Pines
Center’s mission was to promote cooperation as a way of life. Even today,
I feel a sense of community and belonging there that I have never really
found anywhere else. I made many lifelong friends there. The liberal, co-
operative, and democratic values I learned through work and play at Circle
Pines have influenced me greatly; that, together with an ability to see out-
side the box, so to speak, along with a desire to make a difference in the
world, were undoubtedly related to my becoming a sociologist, and to my
becoming involved in numerous social causes, the most recent, health care
reform.
My first introduction to sociology was in 1957 when a dorm mate at the
University of Illinois, where I majored in industrial administration, gave me
a copy of Robert Merton’s Social Theory and Social Structure (Merton 1957).
I was fascinated by some of the articles in it, such as “Bureaucratic Structure
and Personality.” I was finishing a B.S. degree there in Industrial Adminis-
tration, which included 2 years of engineering, which was not for me. My
father was an electrical engineer, and I studied engineering in part to please
him. After 2 years in the Army, while I was a student in the M.A. program
in Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Illinois, I took two
P1: MRM/RKP P2: MRM
Sociological Practice [sopr] pp074-296875 February 16, 2001 12:21 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999
80 Glass
influential sociology courses, political sociology with Joe Gusfield, and in-
dustrial sociology with visiting professor Guenther Roth, the Max Weber
scholar.
In 1962 I moved to Los Angeles and began working on my Ph.D. in
sociology at UCLA. I was awarded a research assistantship at the Institute
of Industrial Relations and was assigned to the management program, which
was heavily involved with sensitivity training (T-Groups). These groups, with
their origins in Kurt Lewin’s work, were staffed in part by faculty of the
Division of Behavioral Science in the Graduate School of Management in-
cluding Bob Tannenbaum, Jim Clark, and Fred Massarik who did some of
the pioneering work with T-groups, experiential learning, and organization
development (Tannenbaum et al. 1961). I became very much involved as
a group leader, researcher, and participant. I saw the T-Group as a means
for individuals to see themselves as others see them, try out new behaviors,
learn about group process, identity, roles, leadership, socialization, and other
sociological processes (Glass 1968, 1973; Glass and Frankiel 1968; Glass and
Glass 1981).
Through the Behavioral Science Division, where I also worked as a re-
search assistant, I came in contact with Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Eric
Trist (Sociotechnical Systems), Warren Bennis, and others doing research
and consulting in group dynamics, organization development, and personal
growth. In 1972 I attended a 4-week Social System Change training program
in Applied Behavioral Science at the NTL Institute in Bethel, Maine, where
the curriculum was small group leadership, organizational development and
consulting skills, and group relations theory (Tavistock), all of which fur-
thered my interest in applying sociology.
One of the highlights of my graduate study in sociology was the oppor-
tunity to work with, and learn from Melville Dalton, whose book Men Who
Manage (1959) is one of the finest participant observation studies we have.
His account of how he did his research (Dalton 1959, 1964) is most relevant
to the sociological clinician because participant observation is inherent in
clinical work. My doctoral dissertation was a participant observation study
of the Neighborhood Youth Corps (Glass 1968) that grew out of a Labor
Department sponsored study that I collaborated on with Prof. Dalton.
The human potential movement began flourishing in California in the
1960s while I was a graduate student. I joined the Association for Human-
istic Psychology (AHP), was active as a book reviewer, conference partici-
pant, and writer. The humanistic psychology movement was established as a
“third force,” an alternative to the behaviorism and psychoanalytic traditions
that were so much part of mainstream psychology. The scholars, therapists,
and researchers involved in humanist psychology took a normative position
P1: MRM/RKP P2: MRM
Sociological Practice [sopr] pp074-296875 February 16, 2001 12:21 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999
Alfred McClung Lee responded to the paper and this was the begin-
ning of a continuing dialogue with him which, I believe, contributed to his
cofounding the Humanist Sociology Association in 1976 at the same ASA
meeting where I gave my roundtable on clinical sociology.
I published several papers that advocated a humanist sociology (Glass
1971a, b), urging that a humanistic viewpoint in both psychology and sociol-
ogy focus on enhancing choice, freedom, and the development of potential
in human beings, and that our task as sociologists is to look at which values
and institutions are conducive to rather than repressive of human well being,
growth, and development.
Another consequence of my interest in humanistic and applied behav-
ioral science was a (then) radically different approach to teaching. While still
a graduate student, I wrote a prize winning essay on improving graduate ed-
ucation, subsequently revised and published with my wife (Glass and Glass
1968). We discussed the need for interaction between teacher and student
beyond one lecturing and the other taking notes, the importance of self-
knowledge, and the integration of cognitive with experiential learning. We
noted that graduate programs included nothing on learning how to teach,
P1: MRM/RKP P2: MRM
Sociological Practice [sopr] pp074-296875 February 16, 2001 12:21 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999
82 Glass
(then a far more liberal journal than now!) it also appeared in The Desert
(Wheelis 1970). Wheelis defined freedom as the awareness of alternatives
and the ability to choose. It still is one of the most incisive arguments for
the existence of human freedom and choice, a view scarcely found in most
deterministic sociology.
I have already mentioned the role that my interest in humanist sociol-
ogy played as a foundation for clinical sociology. I wish to add a few words
about the central role that Alfred McClung Lee and Betty Lee played both
as an inspiration and as role models for a more engaged and humane sociol-
ogy. Toward Humanist Sociology (Lee 1973) clearly spells out the role that
sociology should play to identify and magnify the individual’s potential in
society and the role of society in nurturing human values.
Al and Betty Lee started the Society for the Study of Social Problems
in 1950–51, and cofounded the Association for Humanist Sociology in 1976.
I was at the founding meeting, and was an active member for a number
of years. Al and Betty were at the founding meeting of the CSA in 1978,
where Al’s inspiration and support gave us a big boost. Lee’s definition of
clinical sociology appeared in 1944 in H. P. Fairchild’s Dictionary of Sociology
(Fairchild 1944, p. 303). The Sociological Practice Association can boast of
two of its members being elected President of the ASA: Alfred McClung
Lee and Amitai Etzioni.
CONCLUSION
I have outlined here some of the factors that led to the founding of the
CSA in 1978. I have not attempted to carry the story beyond the beginnings
of CSA; others have done that very well as noted.
The rebel in me, the inclination to see things in new ways, see things
others don’t see, make connections, create networks, are qualities developed
from my life experiences that are likely related to my “rediscovery” of clinical
sociology. I have been a facilitator and networker much of my life. I like
getting people and ideas together in hopes that an outcome will emerge
beyond what I could do or would want to do myself. I have never been
much of a researcher and prefer activities that involve direct interaction
with others. I have sometimes taken solace from Abe Maslow, who once
said “I’m someone who likes plowing new ground, then walking away from
it. I get bored. I like discovery, not proving. For me the big thrill comes with
the discovery.”
In this brief paper, I cannot begin to do justice to all those persons
whose efforts went into the successful rebirth of clinical sociology. I am
deeply grateful to them for making my dream a reality and carrying it on.
P1: MRM/RKP P2: MRM
Sociological Practice [sopr] pp074-296875 February 16, 2001 12:21 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999
84 Glass
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
REFERENCES
Bennis, Warren G., Kenneth D. Benne, Robert Chin, and Kenneth E. Corey (eds.). 1976. The
Planning of Change, 3rd edn. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Bugenthal, James F. T. 1967. Challenges of Humanistic Psychology. New York: McGraw Hill.
Clark, Elizabeth J. 1990. “The Development of Contemporary Clinical Sociology.” Clinical
Sociology Review 8:100–115.
Clark, Elizabeth and Jan M. Fritz. 1990. “Sociological Practice: Defining the Field.” Sociological
Practice 8:239–242.
Dalton, Melville. 1959. Men Who Manage. NY: Wiley.
Dalton, Melville. 1964. “Preconceptions and Methods in Men Who Manage.” In Sociologists at
Work, edited by Phillip E. Hammond. New York: Basic Books.
Dunham, H. Warren. 1972. “Clinical Sociology: Its Nature and Function.” Paper presented at
ASA Meetings, New Orleans; edited version reprinted 1982, in Clinical Sociology Review
1:23–33.
Fairchild, H. P. 1944. Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Philosophical Library.
Fritz, Jan M. 1985. The Clinical Sociology Handbook. New York: Garland.
Fritz, Jan M. 1989. “The History of Clinical Sociology.” Sociological Practice 7:72–95.
Fritz, Jan M. 1991a. “The Emergence of American Clinical Sociology: The First Courses.”
Clinical Sociology Review 9:15–26.
Fritz, Jan M. 1991b. “The Emergence of American Clinical Sociology.” In Handbook of Clinical
Sociology, edited by Howard M. Rebach and John G. Bruhn. New York: Plenum.
Fritz, Jan M., and Elizabeth J. Clark (eds.). 1989. Sociological Practice 7:9–95.
Glass, John F. 1968. Organizational Dilemmas in the War on Poverty: Contrasts in the Neighbor-
hood Youth Corps. Unpublished Dissertation, UCLA.
Glass, John F. 1970. “Toward a Humanistic Soiology.” Association for Humanistic Psychology
Newsletter 6(4):1, 2.
Glass, John F. 1971a. “The Humanistic Challenge to Sociology.” Journal of Humanistic Psychol-
ogy 11:170–183. Reprinted in John F. Glass and John R. Staude, eds. Humanistic Society:
Today’s Challenge to Sociology. Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear.
Glass, John F. 1971b. “Toward a Sociology of Being: The Humanistic Potential.” Sociological
Analysis 32(4):191–198.
Glass, John F. 1973. “The Presentation of Self and the Encounter Culture: Notes on the Soci-
ology of T-groups.” Small Group Behavior 4(4):449–457.
Glass, John F. 1976. “Clinical Sociology: A New Profession?” Unpublished abstract presented
at Roundtable Discussion, ASA Meeting, New York, September 3.
Glass, John. 1979. “Renewing an Old Profession: Clinical Sociology.” American Behavioral
Scientist 22(4):513–529.
Glass, John F. 1991. “Foreword.” In Handbook of Clinical Sociology, edited by Howard
M. Rebach and John G. Bruhn. New York: Plenum.
Glass, John F. 1994. “Organizations and the Workplace.” In Using Sociology, 2nd ed., edited by
Roger A. Straus. Dix Hills, NY: General Hall.
P1: MRM/RKP P2: MRM
Sociological Practice [sopr] pp074-296875 February 16, 2001 12:21 Style file version Nov. 19th, 1999
Glass, John F., and Harry H. Frankiel. 1968. “The Influence of Subjects on the Researcher: A
Problem in Observing Social Interaction.” Pacific Sociology Review 11(2):75–80.
Glass, John and Jan Fritz. 1982. “Clinical Sociology: Origins and Development.” Clinical Soci-
ology Review 1:3–6.
Glass, John F., and Judith Glass. 1968. “Improving Graduate Education.” The Educational
Forum 32:439–446.
Glass, John and Judith Glass. 1981. “Humanistic Education: A Tale of Two Professors.” Journal
of Humanistic Psychology 21(2):71–77.
Glass, John F., and John R. Staude (eds.) 1972. Humanistic Society: Today’s Challenge to Soci-
ology. Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear.
Glassner, Barry and Jonathan Freedman. 1979. Clinical Sociology. New York: Longman.
Haney, Craig, Curtis Banks, and Philip Zimbardo. 1981. “A Study of Prisoners and Guards in
a Simulated Prison.” Pp. 52–68 in Readings About the Social Animal, 3rd. edn., edited by
Elliot Aronson. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.
Jaques, Elliott. 1982. “The Method of Social Analysis in Social Change and Social Research.”
Clinical Sociology Review 1:50–58.
Kallen, David J. 1995. “Some History of Clinical Sociology and Sociological Practice.” Clinical
Sociology Review 13:1–23.
Kargman, Marie W. 1957. “The Clinical Use of Social System Theory in Marriage Counseling.”
Marriage & Family Living 19:263–269. Reprinted 1986, in Clinical Sociology Review 4:
19–29.
Lee, Alfred McClung. 1944. “Sociology, Clinical.” p. 303 in Dictionary of Sociology, edited by
H. P. Fairchild. New York: Philosophical Library.
Lee, Alfred McClung. 1973. Toward Humanist Sociology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Merton, Robert. K. 1957. Social Theory and Social Structure, 2nd edn. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Porter, Elias. 1962. “The Parable of the Spindle.” Harvard Business Review 40(3):58–66.
Reprinted, 1987, in Clinical Sociology Review 5:33–44.
Sarason, Seymour B. 1971. The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change. Boston: Allyn
& Bacon.
Shostak, Arthur B. (ed.). 1966. Sociology in Action. Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.
Straus, Roger (ed.). 1979. “Clinical Sociology” (Entire issue). American Behavioral Scientist
22(4).
Straus, Roger (ed.). 1994. Using Sociology. Dix Hills, NY: General Hall. (Third Edition in press).
Tannenbaum, Robert, Irving R. Weschler, and Fred Massarik. 1961. Leadership and Organiza-
tion. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Wheelis, Allen. 1970. “How People Change” In The Desert. New York: Basic Books. Reprinted
in Glass, John F. and John R. Staude (eds.). 1972. Humanistic Society: Today’s Challenge
to Sociology. Santa Monica, CA: Goodyear.
Wirth, Louis. 1931. “Clinical Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology 37:49–66. Reprinted,
1982, in Clinical Sociology Review 1:7–22.