Interview with Robert R. Holt by Carlo Bonomi

(Received 25 October 2007; accepted 24 November 2007)

Robert R. Holt has been a main author of the so-called “crises of metapsychology” of the 1970s and is representative of the encounter, at its highest level, between psychoanalysis and academic psychology in the second half of twentieth century. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, USA in 1917, he studied at Princeton University (BA, 1939), Harvard University (MA, 1941; phD, 1944), and the Washington School of Psychiatry and Topeka Institute for Psychoanalysis (1944-1953). He has been Emeritus Professor of Psychology of the New York University since 1988, where he has been Director of the Research Center for Mental Health (1953-1963), Professor of Psychology at the University (1958-1988), and Co-Director of the Research Center for Mental Health (1963-1969). Among others awards, he has received the Research Career Award (National Institute of Mental Health, 1962-1988), the Great Man Award (Society for Projective Techniques and Personality Assessment, 1969), the Psychologist of the Year Award (New York Society of Clinical Psychologists, 1973), and the Great Teacher Award (New York University, 1985). He has published 17 books and 142 scientific and professional papers and chapters. His magnum opus, a two-volume study on nonrational cognition, will be appearing in the monograph series of Psychological Issues under the title Primary process thinking: Theory, measurement, and research.