Molly Harrower

Molly Harrower (born Mary Rachel Harrower; January 25, 1906 – February 20, 1999) was an American clinical psychologist. During the Second World War she created a large-scale multiple choice Rorschach test. She was one of the first clinical psychologists to open a private practice. Specializing in diagnostics, Harrower developed a scale allowing practitioners to predict which patients would profit from psychotherapy.

Family and early life Molly Harrower was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, the daughter of James, a banker, and Ina (née White) Harrower. Her Scottish-born parents were visiting South Africa when she was born and the family returned to the United Kingdom while she was an infant. Their home was in Cheam, a village south of London. Molly Harrower had one brother, who was three years younger. From the age of ten she attended the Godolphin School in Salisbury where she excelled at sports, particularly cricket. She then spent four months in France on a scholarship to study painting and dancing before returning to England, where she worked as an assistant to C.K. Ogden, mainly in his capacity as a book dealer in Cambridge.

Ogden recommended her to his friend the Gestalt psychologist Kurt Koffka, who directed the psychology laboratory at Smith College in Massachusetts. The external examiners were George Humphrey, Edwin Boring, and Arnold Gesell. This allowed the Rorschach to be given to large groups in as little as 15 minutes, in comparison to the normally administered Rorschach that could take an hour per individual. The Multiple Choice Rorschach attracted a flurry of attention in the few years after, but test was ultimately found to be of little value.

In 1941 Harrower moved from Montreal to Madison, Wisconsin where her husband, neurosurgeon Theodore Erickson, had obtained a position at the University of Wisconsin–Madison medical school.

Clinical practice Harrower opened a private practice in New York City in 1945, one of the first clinical psychologists to do so. She specialized in psychodiagnostic testing of medical patients referred to her by psychiatrists, neurologists and other physicians, using the Rorschach test as her primary tool.

After undergoing psychoanalysis herself from 1944 to 1946 she extended her practice to include psychotherapy. She also did consulting work for organizations such as the Children’s Court of Manhattan, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and the Unitarian-Universalist Church. In 1972 she was awarded the Bruno Klopfer Award by the Society for Personality Assessment. The University of Florida made her an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in March 1981. She established the Molly Harrower Women's Golf Endowment at the University of Florida.

Publications Harrower's publications include 20 books and more than 100 articles and book chapters.

In 1976 Harrower published a notable article based on the examination of records of Rorschach tests administered to Nazi war criminals immediately after the Second World War. She found that they did not show any common personality type, and that some appeared to be psychologically normal. Based on this conclusion, she cautioned that "well-integrated, productive and secure personalities are no protection against being sucked into a vortex of myth and deception, which may ultimately erupt into the commitment of horror on a grand scale". This research led to her collaboration on a book published in 1995 entitled The Quest for the Nazi Personality: A Psychological Investigation of Nazi War Criminals.

Personal life Molly Harrower was married twice and had no children. Her first husband was Theodore Erickson, a neurosurgeon whom she met while working at the Montreal Neurological Institute. They were married in 1938 and were divorced in 1944. During their marriage she published under the name Harrower-Erickson. She married Mortimer Lahm, a businessman, in 1955. Lahm died in 1967.

Partial bibliography

As sole author

1928, I Don't Mix Much With Fairies 1933, Spiral: and other poems 1946, Time to squander, time to reap New Bedford, MA: Reynolds Publishing. 1952, Appraising Personality 1958, Personality Change and Development 1962, The Practice of Clinical Psychology 1965, Psychodiagnostic T: An empirical approach, Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. 1971, The Psychologist at Work (revised) 1972, The Therapy of Poetry Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas. 1978, "Changing horses in mid-stream: An experimentalist becomes a clinician." In T. S. Krawiec (Ed.), The psychologists: Autobiographies of distinguished living psychologists Vol. 3(pp. 85–104). Brandon, T: Clinical Psychology Publishing. 1983, Kurt Koffka: an unwitting self-portrait. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press. 1991, "Inkblots and poems." In C. E. Walker (Ed.) The history of clinical psychology in autobiography Vol. 1 (pp. 125–169). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Joint author 1951, Harrower, Molly, and Matilda Elizabeth Steiner., Large Scale Rorschach Techniques; A Manual for the Group Rorschach and Multiple Choice Tests. Springfield, Ill: Thomas. 1987, Harrower, M., Bowers D., The Inside Story: Self-Evaluations Reflecting Basic Rorschach Types 1995, Eric A. Zillmer, Molly Harrower, Barry A. Ritzler, Robert P. Arche, The Quest for the Nazi Personality: A Psychological Investigation of Nazi War Criminals.