Barbara S. Held

Affiliation: Psychology

Barry N. Wish Professor of Psychology and Social Studies Emerita

Professor Barbara S. Held is both a clinical psychologist and a theoretical/philosophical psychologist. Her scholarship focuses on the nature of psychological/mental states and processes, how to change them therapeutically, and what we can know about them in ourselves and in others.

Held is the 2012 recipient of the American Psychological Foundation Joseph B. Gittler Award, which recognizes “the most scholarly contribution to the philosophical foundations of psychological knowledge." She served as the 2008 - 2009 President of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology of the American Psychological Association.

Professor Held is the author of Back to Reality: A Critique of Postmodern Theory in Psychotherapy (W. W. Norton, 1995), in which she analyzes the postmodern linguistic turn in psychotherapy and its consequences for clinical practice. She is also author of Psychology’s Interpretive Turn: The Search for Truth and Agency in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (American Psychological Association Books, 2007), in which she defends a realist ontology and an objectivist epistemology in psychological science.

Trained as a clinical psychologist, Held practiced therapy for 15 years. She is the author of many scholarly articles and chapters about psychotherapy and psychological science, and is a fellow of the American Psychological Association Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, Society of Clinical Psychology, and Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. She has a long-standing interest in the philosophy of science, in particular the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of psychological inquiry.

In her popular book Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching: A 5-Step Guide to Creative Complaining (St. Martin’s, 2001) and in subsequent scholarly articles, she has challenged what she calls the “tyranny of the positive attitude in America” and as a result has become a leading critic of the positive psychology movement. This work has led to extensive worldwide media attention, including features in the New York Times and People magazine, as well as appearances on NBC’s Today show, ABC News, CBS News, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, the BBC, CBC, RTE. (Media list available on request)

Gus: A Bird's Life in His Own Words (Maine Authors Publishing, October, 2024) is a heartwarming, funny love story about how a psychologist (David Bellows) who initially rejected the 1.4-ounce parakeet his wife (Barbara Held) insisted on adopting ultimately wanted Gus to live beyond his all-too-brief five years. How Gus's uncanny words of wisdom—though sometimes making David look bad to others--helped his therapy patients, himself, and Barbara in remarkable ways.

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Held has been publishing opinion pieces in Maine and out-of-state newspapers. The theme of discerning truth (in our sociopolitical world, in everyday life, and/or in science) runs through the diverse topics of her op-eds.

Held, B. S. (2022). Making sense of charges of scientism in psychology and beyond: Logical and epistemological implications. Theory & Psychology, 32(4), 535-555.

Held, B. S. (2021). Taking the humanities seriously. Review of General Psychology, 25(2), 119-133.

Held, B. S. (2020). Epistemic violence in psychological science: Can knowledge of, from, and for the (othered) people solve the problem? Theory & Psychology, 30(3), 349-370.

Held, B. S. (2019). Testing the limits: Theoretical psychology re-envisioned in light of boundary-pushing trends in theoretical physics, philosophy of biology, and philosophy of psychology. In T. Teo (Ed.), Re-envisioning Theoretical Psychology (pp. 161-188). Palgrave Macmillan.

Held, B. S. (2018). Positive psychology’s a priori problem. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 58, 313-332.

Held, B. S. (2016). Why clinical psychology should not go positive—and/or negative. In A. Wood & J. Johnson (Eds.), The Wiley Handbook of Positive Clinical Psychology. New York City: Wiley.

Held, B. S. (2013). Feeling bad, being bad, and the perils of personhood. In A. C. Bohart, B. S. Held, E. Mendelowitz, & K. J. Schneider (Eds.), Humanity’s Dark Side: Evil, Destructive Experience, and Psychotherapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Held, B. S. (2011). Critique and metacritique in psychology: Whence and whither. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 31, 184-192.

Held, B. S. (2010). Why there is universality in rationality. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 30, 1-16. [Presidential Address of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, American Psychological Association].

Held, B. S. (2008). Combating the tyranny of the positive attitude. In J. Allison and D. Gediman (Eds.), This I believe II: More personal philosophies of remarkable men and women (pp. 106-108). New York: Henry Holt.

Held, B. S. (2005). The "virtues" of positive psychology. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 25, 1-34.

Held, B.S. (2004). The negative side of positive psychology. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 44 , 9-46.

Held, B.S. (2002). The tyranny of the positive attitude in America: Observation and speculation. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 58, 965-992.

Held, B.S. (2000). General systems theory and philosophy. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press.

Held, B.S. (1998). The many truths of postmodernist discourse. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 18, 193-217.

Held, B.S. (1996). Constructivism in psychotherapy: Truth and consequences. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (The flight from science and reason), 775, 198-206.

Education

PhD, University of Nebraska
AB, Douglass College

Psychology

Barbara S. Held

Books

Selected Articles and Chapters

Education