Constance Ruth Ahrons (April 16, 1937 - November 29, 2021) was an American psychotherapist. She was an early advocate of collaborative divorce.

Biography

Constance Ruth Ahrons was born on April 16, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York to immigrants Jacob and Estelle Ahrons. She attended

Upsala College Upsala College (UC) was a private college affiliated with the Swedish-American Augustana Synod (later the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church) and located in East Orange in Essex County, New Jersey in the United States. Upsala was founded in ...

but dropped out when she married lawyer Jac Weiseman and had a baby. After reading ''

The Feminine Mystique ''The Feminine Mystique'' is a book by Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States. First published by W. W. Norton on February 19, 1963, ''The Feminine Mystique'' became a bestseller, initially selling o ...

'', she returned to Upsala and graduated in 1964. In 1967, she received her master's degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin. In 1967, she married therapist Morton Perlmutter. Ahrons received her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the

University of Wisconsin, Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

, in 1973. She took a professorship in sociology at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

in 1984. In 1996 she was the director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Training Program at USC. She taught there until 2001. She is known for her research in marriage and divorce which cumulated in the book ''The Good Divorce''. In 1977 she began researching divorce which is then used in the book to champion collaborative divorce at a time when divorce was stigmatizing and coined the term "binuclear." Conservative critics saw her work as contributing to the decline of the nuclear family. Ahrons ended her life through

physician-assisted suicide Assisted suicide is suicide undertaken with the aid of another person. The term usually refers to physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which is suicide that is assisted by a physician or other healthcare provider. Once it is determined that the p ...

on November 29, 2021, after being diagnosed with

lymphoma Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). In current usage the name usually refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include enla ...

Honors and awards

* Radcliffe Institute Fellow, 2000-2001 * Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Literary Association for the book ''The Good Divorce'' (HarperCollins, 1994), 1995

Books

* ''The good divorce: keeping your family together when your marriage comes apart'' (HarperCollins, 1994). * ''Divorced families : a multidisciplinary developmental view.'' with Roy H. Rodgers. 1st ed. New York : W.W. Norton, c1987. * ''We're still family : what grown children have to say about their parents' divorce.'' 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c2004.

Selected articles

* "Family ties after divorce: Long‐term implications for children." Family process 46, no. 1 (2007): 53–65. * "The continuing coparental relationship between divorced spouses." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 51, no. 3 (1981): 415. * "The binuclear family." Alternative lifestyles 2, no. 4 (1979): 499–515. * with Richard B. Miller. "The effect of the postdivorce relationship on paternal involvement: A longitudinal analysis." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 63, no. 3 (1993): 441–450. * "Divorce: A crisis of family transition and change." Family Relations (1980): 533–540.

References

External links

Ahrons, Constance R. [WorldCat Identities]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahrons, Constance 1937 births 2021 deaths American women psychologists Divorce in the United States University of Southern California faculty People from Brooklyn Upsala College alumni University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Social Work alumni American non-fiction writers