Molly Harrower - Career in Therapy

Career in Therapy

In New York in 1945 she opened what she believed to be “the first full-time practice of psychodiagnostics and consulting, later to include psychotherapy”. After 22 years, her private practice ended in 1966 with the illness of her second husband, businessman Mortimer Lahm. During her time in private practice she did diagnostic work-ups of over 1600 patients and developed a method of poetry therapy using poems to show how poets cope with the experiences that clients find disturbing. Dr. Harrower wrote poetry through much of her life and published several books of poetry. She also consulted widely for groups as diverse as the United States Army and Air Force, the U. S. State Department, the Children’s Court of Manhattan, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and the Unitarian-Universalist Church. She helped develop a program of certification for practicing psychologists in the State of New York. Concerned with the effectiveness of her work, she combined her science and practice interests in a major study of the effectiveness of predictors of patient improvement with therapy. Upon the death of her second husband, she moved to Gainesville, Florida in 1967 and served on the University of Florida faculty until the age of 70. She died in Orlando on February 20, 1999 at the age of 93.