Neil S. Jacobson February 23, 1949---June 2, 1999

By Frank Pittman

Neil Jacobson, Professor of Psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, and quite possibly the most prolific family therapy researcher in the field today, died suddenly of a heart attack while in Las Vegas to give a workshop on domestic violence. He was only fifty, but in that brief life he had been amazingly productive, continuously conducting federally funded research on marital therapy, depression and domestic violence over the last 23 years. In fact he was the most highly funded researcher in all of the University of Washington when he died. He was principal investigator with Andy Christensen for the largest-ever clinical trial for marital therapy. And at the same time, he was principal investigator for the largest-ever single-site clinical trial for treatments of depression, the result of which was amid-stream promise to knock the sock off of treatment-as-usual for depression. From the beginning of his impact on the field of family therapy, he brought not only a behavioral/social learning perspective but an insistence on research and data to support the theory and practice of family therapy.

Neil produced hundreds of papers and a series of classic books, including Marital Therapy, written in 1979 with Gayla Margolin; The Clinical Handbook of Marital Therapy, first written with Al Gurman in 1986; Integrative Marital Therapy (or in paperback Acceptance and Change in Couple Therapy), written with Andrew Christensen in 1996; When Men Batter Women, written in 1998 with John Gottman; Reconcilable Differences, by Andrew Christensen and Neil, published in February 2000; and the forthcoming Ending Depression: Reclaiming Your Life Through Self Activation, written with Judith Woodburn. Some of these books are leading textbooks while others, especially the recent one on domestic violence, have gotten astounding press coverage, extensively reported and praised in The New York Times and Psychology Today, on Oprah!, Good Morning America, NPR, CBS, NBC, etc. Whatever else Neil has done in his life, When Men Batter Women is an astounding achievement. Needless to say, Neil was much sought-after as a teacher and has given over 500 lectures throughout the world. Neil's work has also won him awards from AFTA, AAMFT, NIMH, the California Psychological Association (which just named him Psychologist of the Year) and his doctoral alma mater, the University of North Carolina (which declared him a Distinguished Alumnus). He had just been nominated for a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant, which amounts to being designated a National Treasure. Neil has been indispensable to the fields of psychology and family therapy, and family therapy has acknowledged it.

For the past four years, since marrying my niece, sociologist Virginia Rutter, Neil has been a member of my family. We have been favored with his unfailing good humor, spirited exchanges of opinion, and mutual exploration of ideas ? the things that made him an effective collaborator throughout his career. He has challenged me and held me to a high standard of thought and evidence, as he has all of us. At times, he has been more uncle than nephew to me.

Neil is also famous as a friend, and I believe everyone who had met him since childhood came to Seattle to give a tearful eulogy. He never, judging from the crowd at his memorial service, lost a friend.

Neil, much like a bearded Alfred Hitchcock, was blessed by nature with such an endearingly comic appearance that he spent his life as a walking (or usually reclining) comedy routine, disarming people so thoroughly that he could challenge them on any level and shake up their thinking without ever giving offense. Who could be threatened by those big, black innocent looking eyes or that soothing, honeyed voice? He was the embodiment of non-violence, but Neil loved debate, delighted in finding points of disagreement and starting an intellectual dance that could go on, with mutual pleasure, respect and love, unendingly.

Neil was an active and delighted father to his three marvelous children from his earlier marriages. He made Virginia gloriously happy and she considers him a spectacular husband. Neil is also survived by his parents, Margie and Lloyd Jacobson, his two brothers, Tom and John, a mob of bereft graduate students and some close, longtime friends and collaborators like Andy Christensen and John Gottman, who supplied me with the data for this obituary. Neil was much loved. He will be missed not only by our family, but by the family of family therapists everywhere.

In honor of Neil and his contribution to the field of domestic violence, Virginia and his children, Matthew, Emily and Jesse, have established a fund on behalf of battered women's shelters. Tax-deductible, charitable donations can be made to the Neil Jacobson Memorial Fund and mailed to Neil Jacobson Memorial Fund, c/o Seattle Foundation, 425 Pike Street, Suite 510, Seattle, WA 98101.