Lois Holzman

Who is Lois Holzman?

Lois Holzman is a cofounder with Fred Newman of the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy and the Institute's current director. She is a leading proponent of cultural approaches to learning, development and psychotherapy.

Trained as a developmental psychologist at Columbia University and at the prestigious Rockefeller University Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition at Rockefeller University run by the Vygotsky scholar Michael Cole, Holzman is an expert in the writings of Lev Vygotsky and has made Vygotsky relevant to the fields of psychotherapy, education and organizational development.

Holzman served on the faculty of Empire State College, SUNY, and was the director of the Barbara Taylor School.

Holzman is a leading methodologist of social therapy, an approach to human development and learning created by Fred Newman and has been Newman's chief collaborator since the 1970s. She is considered the leading expert on Newman's work and on social therapy, having published 9 books and dozens of academic articles on social therapeutic methodology.