Janet Woititz

Janet Beigel Geringer Woititz (March 27, 1938 – June 7, 1994) was an American psychologist and researcher best known for her writings and lectures about the troubled offspring of alcoholic parents, including the 1983 best-selling book Adult Children of Alcoholics.

Woititz was born Janet Geringer in Great Neck, New York, in 1938. She earned a bachelor's degree from Antioch College and a master's at Montclair State College (since renamed Montclair State University), where she taught as an adjunct professor. In 1976 she received her doctorate in education at Rutgers University, where during the summer she taught at the Rutgers Center for Alcoholic Studies.

In 1983, Health Communications published Woititz's book, Adult Children of Alcoholics, a trade book that reached bestsellers lists. In that text, she highlighted typical patterns that might be found in the families of alcoholics, including an adult's lack of self-esteem and difficulty relating to others. After an expanded edition was printed in 1990, eventually selling 1.8 million copies in English, it was translated into six foreign languages.

Woititz provided a foundation for an organization called Adult Children of Alcoholics (sometimes abbreviated ACoA or ACA), but she was not an official founder of it. In 1985 she published her second best-selling book called, Struggle for Intimacy, of which nearly one million copies were sold in the first year.

Woititz founded the Institute for Counseling and Training of West Caldwell, New Jersey, and served as its president. At the Institute, patients could find therapeutic counseling for problems and disorders ranging from relationships to overeating and other disorders. In addition to her many books and journal publications, Woititz also lectured in the United States and abroad. She died of cancer on June 7, 1994, at the age of 55, at her home in Roseland, New Jersey.