Robert W. Firestone

Robert W. Firestone, Ph.D., clinical psychologist, author, and artist, has established a comprehensive body of written work that is focused on the concept that defenses formed by individuals early in life tend to impede the individuation process, often impair their ability to sustain intimate adult relationships, and can have a damaging effect on their children. 

The primary emphasis of Dr. Firestone’s theory development has centered on the study of resistance in psychotherapy and combines a challenging blend of psychoanalytic and existential ideas. His complete body of work is a valuable contribution to the field of psychology and, taken as a whole, is a fully realized “paradigm” of what it means to be fully human.

R.W. Firestone was born in Brooklyn in 1930, the son of a doctor and a fashion designer. In those two sensibilities one can trace the beginnings of his diverse interests. From his father, the community G.P., on call at all hours of the day and night, he received his first exposure and appreciation for a life devoted to service. 

The comings and goings of the myriad of patients through his father’s home office was certainly a spark in Firestone’s lifelong interest and commitment to people. His mother’s career as fashion designer in New York was an early important influence on his developing artistic sensibilities.

His childhood in Brooklyn had a profound impact. In the relatively compact area of the few city blocks surrounding his neighborhood, one could experience a wide diversity of ethnic cultures and Firestone relished this exposure to the varied cast of characters he found in his wanderings.

‘My feeling when I was growing up was to attach to everything and to experience everything,” he says of his early days. ‘I wanted to learn about myself, to know myself on a deeper level. I found that involvement with people, even if led to hurt, was a way to get to know about life, and myself, in the context of real experiences. I think as a child I was searching for and drawn to people who seemed alive and spontaneous and real.’

Intelligent and inquisitive, Firestone advanced through school easily, enrolling at Syracuse University in 1946 at the age of 16. His desire to understand himself and people in his life led him to study psychology. His need for a creative outlet led him to painting. Both passions were influenced by his early studies of the great men in both fields, especially Freud and the early psychoanalysts in psychology, and Van Gogh and Gaugin in art. 

While obviously impressed with the ideas and creations, Firestone was even more influenced by the lives these men led, finding inspiration in their devotion and dedication to express themselves in manners beyond ordinary life. Freud’s intellectual courage and willingness to follow his ideas in the face of conventional resistance and hostilities were an inspiration and model for Firestone’s own innovative, sometimes controversial, psychological contributions. His adventurous nature found a kindred spirit in Gaugin’s restless search for places that captured his imagination, and Van Gogh’s existential pain and aloneness resonated deeply in the young man’s keen awareness of life’s fleeting, often painful, nature.

After graduating from UC Berkeley in 1949, Firestone attended graduate school in Nebraska and Denver. His postgraduate work was spent studying schizophrenia and working with patients in the extremes of emotional suffering. During this time he also began his first serious artistic endeavors, although the pursuit of his doctorate degree in psychology dominated most of his intellectual and creative energy throughout the mid-fifties.

Firestone worked for a time with Dr. John A. Rosen, author of “Direct Analysis”, at his innovative live-in treatment center for schizophrenics in Pennsylvania. Firestone was impressed with Rosen’s concept of dealing directly with the psychological factors of schizophrenics; a concept frowned upon in the general profession. This experience had a powerful effect on the young psychologist: