Paul R. Robbins

I grew up in Washington, D. C. It was at the time of the Second World War. The War was the singular event of my youth, leaving me and my friends with the feeling that a nation in crisis and scarcity all around us was the normal way of life. My early interest was in astronomy. As a teenager, I constructed a large reflecting telescope, grinding and polishing the mirror in my basement, while listening to radio soap operas. Although I did some scientific research (variable star observations), mostly I just delighted in the beauty of what I could see. You can imagine the thrill of a 13-year-old feasting upon the glories of the cosmos.

I went to college at the University of Chicago, which at the time had a Great Books curriculum. At Chicago I became very interested in both the humanities and the social sciences.
I went to Columbia University for graduate work, taking a Ph.D in psychology.
When I arrived in New York City I was 19 years old and alone. I rented a room near the university and while not recognizing it at the time, I embarked on my own "coming of age" story. I shared apartments on the west side of Manhattan, lived for a while in a cold water flat (rent $22 a month) in Little Italy, and eventually settled in Greenwich Village where I met people interested in the arts and theater. During my years at Columbia, I made life-long friends, experienced love and loss, saw new plays by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, had glimpses of legends at the twilight of their careers, Arturo Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony and Joe DiMaggio playing a peerless centerfild at Yankee Stadium. When I left the city ,I took away a store of memories which filtered their way into my novel "A Time to Remember."

My first professional jobs were as a research psychologist. I worked on studies at the National Institute of Mental Health, at the Public Health Service in downtown Washington, D. C. and directed a large research project for the University of California and the State Health Department at Berkeley, California. I lived in Berkeley during the explosion of student unrest in the mid 1960s. When I left Berkeley, I returned to Washington, D. C. for a long stint at the Department of Psychiatry at the George Washington School of Medicine. I published many technical papers in psychological journals on such topics as dreams, coping behaviors, and depression.

After I left George Washington, I began my own private practice of psychotherapy which lasted about 20 years. I worked mostly with people who had interpersonal difficulties (frequently with a romantic partner) and people who were experiencing depression.

My career as a writer began when I found that I had an ability to translate what we know about psychology into readable, non-technical English. I started writing books for general readers on psychological topics, beginning with "The Psychology of Dreams," and followed this with many titles such as "Understanding Depression," "Coping with Stress," "Adolescent Suicide," "Anger, Aggression, and Violence," (all published by McFarland) and "Anorexia and Bulimia" (published by Enslow).

I have always enjoyed reading stories and making them up. I remember as a child, my brothers and I used to tell each other stories at bedtime. I suppose I always wanted to write novels and I feel a sense of fulfillment now that I am doing so. I have written a mystery and two historical novels.

I am very pleased that many of my books were well thought of by reviewers. For example, Science Books and Films gave its highest ratings to "Anorexia and Bulimia" and "Understanding Depression" was recommended by The Book Report, called "very helpful" by Choice and the Second Edition was said to be "written in jargon-free language" by ARBA. One of the most flattering reviews for any of my books was written by Choice for "Romantic Relationships." Choice wrote, "An excellent book,universally relevant, well written, resourceful, well documented, and entertaining. It deserves widespread distribution." It's nice to get a pat on the back and I appreciated it.

From the score of books I have written over the years, I would like to highlight some of my favorites and talk a bit about how I came to write them. My first full length non-fiction book, "The Psychology of Dreams" has always been one of my favorites. Dreams are a fascinating topic. Can they really tell us useful things about ourselves? This question must have been in the back of my mind when I began my research on dreams. While I was working at the George Washington University School of Medicine, I carried out a series of studies on dreams and was particularly interested in trying to modify Freud's method of free association to dreams to make it more objective. I developed a procedure for dream analysis called "The Dream Incident Technique" and published a number of tecnical papers using the procedure with very interesting results. My interest in dreams led to a desire to write a serious but readable book about dreams for a general audience--one that was non-technical in language, but nonetheless, well documented by research. I was told by people in the publishing world that it would be a mistake to do this; rather, that I should either write what amounted to a watered-down book for a wide audience or a scholarly book for a few. I rejected this advice and wrote the kind of book I envisioned, "The Psychology of Dreams" which was published by McFarland. I continued using this approach in writing my succeeding books.

My Historical Novels
I have always loved stories, so I have included my novels among my favorites. "Medieval Summer," which is set in France and Flanders about the time of Richard the Lion-hearted was the result of a happy accident. I have always had a strong interest in history. When I lived in Washington, D. C., I was planning on doing some scholarly work looking at historical data through the lens of psychological analysis. Living near the Library of Congress, I spent some time looking through the centuries-old reports that supervisory clergy had writtten after visiting medieval monasteries. These records provided fascinating glimpses of daily life in these late medieval communities. However, instead of embarking on a project of scholarly work, I found my imagination stimulated by these glimpses of the past, and I began to develop the outlines of a story of high adventure which resulted in the novel "Medieval Summer" (click selected works for details). I am pleased to say that the book is now back in print.

"A Time to Remember," a recent novel,is a love story set in the years of the Great Depression and the outbreak of World War II. I think the genesis of the novel lies in some of those wonderful films of the 1930s and 1940s, particularly those which portrayed idealistic young heroes, played by such actors as Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart. In any event, I began to develop a story idea about a young writer, Jack Jarrels, who while wandering through the heartland of America searching for story material, encounters a talented young painter, Alice Burke. Alice's aspirations have been stifled by the claustrophobic atmosphere of the small town in which she lives. The story tells of their developing love which carries them to the artistic life of New York's Greenwich Village. Here, their careers prosper. When war breaks out in Europe, Jack, now, with a reputation as an anti-fascist crusader, is asked to serve as a foreign correspondent. He is caught in the Nazi invasion of France and while trying to escape becomes a participant in the raging hell of the evacuation of British soldiers from Dunkirk. I hope readers will enjoy this love story set in these turbulent times--years in which America faced existential threats. The book is available in soft cover and on Amazon's Kindle.

Mystery Novels
When I was a child. all the kids in the neighborhood used to listen to a radio serial called "I love a Mystery." We could hardly wait for the next episode. Of course, I got hooked, myself. Now, it is a pleasure to write mysteries of my own. The first to see the light of day is "Unfinished Symphony, Unsolved Murders." Here is an excerpt from the back cover.
"Syndicated columnist, Harry Ellison, who lives with Sergeant Debbie Simmons of the Washington, D. C. Metropolitan Police Department, has a penchant for becoming involved in unusual murder mysteries. But, the case that begins with a telephone call from his niece, Stephanie, a doctoral student in music, may be the most bizzare case of all. Recently returned from Vienna where she was doing research on her doctoral dissertaion on Franz Schubert, Stephanie finds herself stalked by a person unknown, while working in the library of congress. The person leaves her fragments of musical notation that appear to be the missing part of an unfinished Schubert composition. The music is unmistakably Schubert's in style, but is it authentic or the opening gambit in an elaborate scam? And, how do these musical fragments relate to the unexplained deaths of three renowned Schubert scholars? When Harry and Debbie begin their investigation, they encounter deception, danger, and ultimately must match wits with a diabolical killer."
The novel is availabe on Kindle and other ebook readers.

I would like to describe a few more of my nonfiction books which may be particularly helpful to people. These are "Romantic Relationships," "Coping with Stress," and "Understanding Depression." During my years of being a therapist, I encountered many men and women who were struggling with romantic relationships. They couldn't connect with a person of the opposite sex, or when they did, they couldn't sustain the relationship. I began to look through the research carried out on relationships to see what we had learned over the years, and I was impresssed by the wealth of information that was available.
So, I decided to write a book based on this research and on my own clinical experience. I used a quesion and answer format. The resulting book, "Romantic Relationships" received really excellent reviews. "Choice" listed it as one of the outstanding books of the year.

Almost everybody experiences stress and for many of us, stress can be a very big problem. "Coping with Stress:Commonsense Strategies" is a very readable book that presents a cafeteria of techniques for coping with stress--techniques that research suggests are useful. Readers may find ideas here that could prove very helpful. "Understanding Depression," which has just gone into its second edition, is a book I would recommend to people who want to find out what we know about depression. This book s very informative and well documented with chapters probing into both the causes of depression and its treatment including information on antidepressant drugs, psychotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy, the use of self-help strategies, and alternative medicines. Both books are available from the publisher (800-253-2187) and online.

One may wonder how a psychologist ended up coauthoring a series of books for children in elementary and junior high school, teaching the fundamentals of math and how to apply this knowledge to solving those often troubling word problems. The answer lies in my meeting Sharon Hauge, a talented math professor at a party in Washington, D. C. and beginning a 35 year romance with her. We produced a collection of three books, all beginning with the title "Word Problems," published by Walch Education, which have been used successfully in the schools for many years. The success of these books in teaching children these skills is mostly Sharon's doing. She is a terrific teacher.

I enjoy meeting people who like books. I can be reached on Facebook.