Henri Parens, MD, 2019 (1929 - 2022)
/Dr. Henri Parens’ innovative research work focused on a psychoanalytic approach to the understanding and treatment of aggression. Working with caregiver/children dyads, Dr. Parens and his colleagues documented their hypothesis that caregivers could be taught optimal ways to handle the emergence of aggression in children and this approach could improve the children’s lives. Dr. Parens and his colleagues used real life moments to help teach parents and caregivers how to respond in ways that would enhance their children’s emotional development. Focusing on the caregiver’s role in shaping the child’s capacity to manage their own aggression and teaching caregivers new ways of responding at moments of real urgency between caregiver and child, Dr. Parens is able to teach new and alternative ways to handle aggression.
Dr. Parens’ personal experience with unrestrained aggression as a Holocaust survivor led to research regarding plasticity of aggression. Dr. Parens and his team have systematically developed parenting education materials and an intervention program. The Program includes a CD, Parenting for Emotional Growth (Parens, 2010) containing two sets of books; a textbook; A Curriculum for Students in Grades K Thru 12; and a DVD, The Urgent Need for Universal Parenting Education (Parens, 2008). In 2015, Thomas Jefferson University’s Media Division published the CD’s full contents. It is available as a free download and has been downloaded 1,995 times in 90 countries.