All About Me

All About Me
Greetings! My name is Brent Dean Robbins, if you haven't figured it out by now,
and this is my "All About Me" page at my web site, Mythos & Logos.
It is nice to know that you care enough to find out who I am and what I look like.
Here's a picture of my son and I:

So, who am I? As I write this, I am 38-years-old, born in August of 1970, a Leo for you horoscope devotees, and I have been married to my wonderful wife, April, for 4 years as of May 11 of this past year. We have a 5-year-old son named Dean who is the coolest kid I know, but, then again, I'm a little biased. We have just moved back to my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA after having been in Buffalo, New York for four years and, before that, Meadville, Pennsylvania, where Dean was born.

Jake and Zoey are our two dogs. They are getting old now, both of them are about 14-years-old, which is getting up there for a dog. We bought them after our first move to Pittsburgh, just before I started graduate school at Duquesne. We haven't known life much together without them. They used to bark and run around, now they just putter around the house. Jake is on pain medication and anti-biotics because of arthritis and problems with his teeth. But he'll always be a puppy to me.

My wife and I are the same age, but she was born in September. She has her B.A. in Sociology and worked as a social worker before Dean was born. When Dean was residing in her womb, she decided to give up work semi-permanently, and felt it was her calling to be a stay-at-home Mom. Ok, feminists, I didn't put her up to it; there was no patriarchal oppression from Daddy. No, this was self-induced domestic alienation, thank you very much. But, frankly, she is much happier now than before Dean was born. We are both very happy and fulfilled in our relatively traditional gender roles. So much for casting off the oppressive shackles of tradition. It seems to work for us.

My wife is a devoted Catholic, who used to take baby Dean to rosary groups when we lived in Meadville. There's not much to do in Meadville other than reciting the rosary, apparently. Now, they go everywhere and never even take rosary beads. Mom especially likes to shop, go to various organized Mom groups (e.g., Attachment Parenting), and has strong opinions about the importance of breastfeeding, not playing video games, and avoiding high fructose corn syrup. She's also a big advocate of reading to kids, and we've literally been reading to Dean since he was in the womb. Now, he can read very well, and he's only five-years-old, so it worked!

Dean is a very active boy, with a great sense of humor, who is pretty much constantly talking or making some kind of noise with his mouth--usually a self-composed theme song to accompany his activity, kind of like he's living a movie. Sometimes it's very charming, and at other times, I want to pull my hair out--what little of it I have left. Such are the contradictions of being a Dad. Dean is a very talented young man, who can read very well for his age, who already knows five songs on the piano (thanks to Suzuki Strings lessons), who practices Tai Kwan Do and has various belts and medals I can hardly keep up with them, and who loves, loves, loves anything to do with science. If this kid doesn't become a scientist, let me tell you, I will be surprised. This year, he played soccer and tee-ball, and right now, he's learning how to catch and throw a baseball -- getting better every day, too.

I am Assistant Professor of Psychology at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA. Prior to my appointment at Point Park University, I served as Assistant Professor of Psychology at Daemen College in Buffalo, NY and as Visiting Assistant Professor at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA. In addition, I've worked as a part-time instructor for Walden University, Massey University, and the Consortium of the Niagara Frontier, a program for prisoners at the Wyoming Correctional Facility in Attica, NY.

I have a B.A. in Psychology and Media Communications from Webster University (St. Louis, MO), and a PhD in Clinical Psychology for Duquesne University. I completed my pre-doctoral internship at University of Pittsburgh Counseling Center.

I am Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder of Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts, and a Board member for a number of journals, including PsycCRITIQUES: APA Review of Books, Terrorism Research, International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, and the International Journal of Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy. I am Editor of the Philosophical Psychology book series published by Trivium Press, and am currently co-editing two forthcoming volumes, The Legacy of R.D. Laing and Humanistic and Positive Psychology: Toward a Rapprochement.

I am a recipient of the Harmi Carari Early Career Award for Inquiry, granted by the Society for Humanistic Psychology (Division 32 of the American Psychological Association). My areas of research include the phenomenology of emotion, humor, self-consciousness, religion/spirituality, death anxiety, embodiment, and the medicalization of the body. His clinical research has been especially focused on an existential-phenomenological approach to treatment, which is informed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty's flesh ontology. Additional areas of clinical and research interest include panic disorder other anxiety disorders. I am a strong proponent of epistemological diversity, and a significant portion of my scholarship includes work in the philosophy of science, especially phenomenological and Goethean approaches to science.

Recent Publications:

Robbins, B.D., Tomaka, A., Innus, C., Patterson, J., & Styn G. (in press). Lessons from the dead: Undergraduate experiences of work with cadavers. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying.

Robbins, B.D., & Vandree, K. (in press). The self-regulation of humor expression: A mixed method approach to the study of suppressed laughter. The Humanistic Psychologist.

Robbins, B.D. (in press). Listening to the other: Toward an integration of humanistic, existential, and psychodynamic practice. The Humanistic Psychologist.

Robbins, B.D. (in press). Joy. In S. Lopez (Ed.), The encyclopedia of positive psychology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Robbins, B.D. (2008). Cultural therapeutics: The recovery of metaphoricity. Janus Head, 10(2), 415-423.

Robbins, B.D. (2008). What is the good life? Positive psychology and the renaissance of humanistic psychology. The Humanistic Psychologist, 36(2), 96-112.

Robbins, B.D. & Parlavecchio, H. (2006). The unwanted exposure of the self: A phenomenological study of embarrassment. The Humanistic Psychologist, 34(4), 321-345.

Robbins, B.D. (2006). The delicate empiricism of Goethe: Phenomenology as a rigorous science of nature. The Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 6, np. Retrieved July 5, 2008 from the IPJP database: http://www.ipjp.org

Robbins, B.D. (2006). An empirical-phenomenological study: Being joyful. In C.T. Fischer (Ed.), Qualitative research methods for psychologists: Introduction through empirical studies (pp. 173-212). New York: Academic Press.

Robbins, B.D., & Goichoechea, J. (2005). The psychogenesis of the self and the emergence of ethical relatedness: Klein in light of Merleau-Ponty. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 25(2), 191-223.

Robbins, B.D. (2005). New organs of perception: Goethean science as a cultural therapeutics. Janus Head, 8(1).

Robbins, B.D. (2003). The question of method for existential psychology. The International Journal of Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy, 1(1).

Robbins, B.D. (2003). The phenomenological truth of visual emissions. American Psychologist, 58(6/7).

Barriga, A.Q., Doran, J.W., Newell, S.B., Morrison, E.M., Barbetti, V., & Robbins, B.D. (2002). Relationship between problem behaviours and academic achievement in adolescents: The unique role of attention problems. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 10(4), 233-240.

Robbins, B.D. (2001). Scientia media, incommensurability, and interdisciplinary space. Janus Head, 3(suppl).

Robbins, B.D. (2000). Schreber’s soul-voluptuousness: Mysticism, madness and the feminine in Schreber’s memoirs. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 31(2), 1-38.

Robbins, B.D. (2000). On the history of rhetoric and psychology. Janus Head, 3(1).

Robbins, B.D. (1998). Kuhn in light of Heidegger as a response to Hoeller’s critique of Giorgi. Janus Head, 1(1).