It is with sadness that we note the passing of Sol Garfield. Sol L. Garfield was born on January 8, 1918 (Chicago, IL) and passed away on August 14, 2004 at the age of 86. His parents immigrated to the United States in the early 1890s from Russia-Poland and were among a cohort of Jews from Eastern Europe who sought escape from persecution and discrimination. He grew up in Chicago and worked in his father's grocery store. With his parents' encouragement he sought advancement from the economic and social margin of society toward a professional life. He worked hard to achieve his goals through the Depression of the 1930s and during World War II in the 1940s, often suffering from anti-Semitic discriminatory practices. Fortunately, he received substantial support from a wide variety of people in and out of academia.
He received his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from Northwestern University (1938, 1939, 1942) and became a U.S. Army Clinical Psychologist during World War II (1943II ( -1946)). After the war, the U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) became a nurturing environment for numerous mental health professionals who became prominent. Dr. Garfield was one of them; he held various VA positions for about 10 years (1946)(1947)(1948)(1949)(1950)(1951)(1952)(1953)(1954)(1955)(1956), emerging as a leader in clinical practice, education, and research. He later served as President of the Division of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association (1964) and Editor of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (1979-1984).
In academia he conducted research, published seminal materials, and directed clinical training for about 30 years