Brent Robbins

Who is Brent Robbins?

Brent Dean Robbins is Associate Professor of psychology at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His areas of research include grief, humor, self-consciousness, spirituality/religion, death anxiety, and the medicalization of the body. He is Editor-in-Chief and founder of Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts, and is a Board member for a number of journals, including International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, the International Journal of Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy, PsyCRITIQUES, and Terrorism Research. Robbins is a co-editor of The Legacy of R D Laing, published by Trivium Press. Robbins is a recipient of the Harmi Carari Early Career Award, from the Society for Humanistic Psychology. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from Duquesne University.

In 2011, Robbins co-authored a national letter for the Society for Humanistic Psychology that has brought thousands into the public debate about revisions to the “bible” of American psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Approximately 14,000 individuals and mental health professionals have signed a petition in support of the letter. Thirteen other American Psychological Association divisions have endorsed the petition. Robbins is being called upon by national publications to articulate critics’ concerns. In a recent article about the debate in the San Francisco Chronicle, Robbins notes that under the new guidelines, certain responses to grief could be labeled as pathological disorders, instead of being recognized as being normal human experiences.