Albert Scheflen

Albert Edward Scheflen (15 November 1920 – 17 August 1980) was an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst whose studies of kinesics and the "context analysis" of interaction helped establish the systematic investigation of face-to-face communication. His books, notably Body Language and the Social Order, influenced later work in linguistics, anthropology and family therapy.

Early life and education Scheflen was born in Camden County, New Jersey, in November 1920. He earned an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and completed psychoanalytic training at the Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute. His early papers on communicational structure, published in American Behavioral Scientist, attracted the attention of Ray Birdwhistell and Adam Kendon,

In the late 1960s, Scheflen became professor of psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, directing research on human communication at the Bronx Psychiatric Center.