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Bill Schulz

Bill Schutz was born in 1925 and died in 2002. He was born as William Schutz and he was American psychologist.  Bill was born in Illinois and he was practicing at Esalen Institute.  Afterwards, he became the president of BConWSA international. He got the Phd at UCLA. In the year 1950s, he became a part of peer-group with university of Chicago. This is a counseling center which included Elias Porter, Abraham Maslow, Thomas Gordon and Carl Rogers. He was teaching at University of California at Berkeley Afterwards, he became the president of BConWSA international. He got the Phd at UCLA. In the year 1950s, he became a part of peer-group with university of Chicago. This is a counseling center which included Elias Porter, Abraham Maslow, Thomas Gordon and Carl Rogers. He was teaching at University of California at Berkeley, Harvard University and Tufts University.  He also worked at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and she was the chairman of the holistic studies department for Antioch University until the year 1983.

Related Biography: Tom Shillue

In the year 1958, Bill Schutz started a theory that came to be called Interpersonal relations and it was called Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation or FIRO.  From this theory, it is important for any interpersonal relations to be three dimensions when it comes to explaining human interaction such as affection, control and inclusion.  These are the three dimensions that were used in order to assess the group dynamics.

Bill Schutz also was the one who created the Firo-B. This is the measurement instrument with the scales which assess behavioral aspects of the three dimensions. The advancement of the FIRO theory was FIRO-B tool and it was obvious with the change of the affection scale to the Openness for the FIRO Element B.  This highlighted the new theory with the behavior that are gotten from the feeling also called FIRO Element or F.  This also led to the FIRO element S.

When Bill Schutz was doing the research or teaching in different university, he was focusing more on psychology but also did philosophy, such as research design, logical empiricism,  philosophy of science and scientific method.  He worked together with Paul Lazarsfeld, who is a well known methodologist and sociologist and also with Elvin Semrad, a professor in psychiatry in Harvard Medical School. For Bill, Semrad was the key figure and also a mentor for him.

Bill Schutz was an avid student and he learnt T-Group Methodology where T is meant for training on the National Training laboratories or NTL. He also learn psychosynthesis, which is the spiritual oriented technique that involved imagery and it was devised under Italian contemporary of freud known as Roberto Assagioli, bioenergetics known as Alexander Lowen, psychodrama known as Hannah Weiner. Others in the group were Paul Goodman, Gestalt Therapy, Ida Rolf, Rolfing and John Pierrakos. Bill said that he tried everything including therapies, diets, spiritual, psychological and physical. He said that he also experimented with thirty four days of fasting on water, visiting of the guru meditating, jogging and other body methods. All these, gave him the desire of integrating the experiential with the scientific.


Quick Facts
Birth Date: 4 Apr, 1931
Age: 89 yrs
Occupations: Politician
Birth Place: Des Moines
Education: Harvard Business School
Gender: Male
Net Worth 2021: 5 million
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Last Modified: Jun 26 2020
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