John Roosevelt Boettiger (born March 30, 1939, in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

) is a retired professor of

developmental Development of the human body is the process of growth to maturity. The process begins with fertilization, where an egg released from the ovary of a female is penetrated by a sperm cell from a male. The resulting zygote develops through mitosi ...

and

clinical psychology Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...

, and the son of Anna Roosevelt Boettiger and her second husband,

Clarence John Boettiger Clarence John Boettiger (March 25, 1900 – October 31, 1950) was an American journalist and military officer. He was the second husband of Anna Roosevelt, the daughter and first child of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor ...

. He is a grandson of U.S. President

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

and

Eleanor Roosevelt Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...

. He lives in northern California.

Early life and family

As a child, Boettiger lived with his mother in the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

while his grandfather was president. His parents divorced in 1949, and his father committed suicide the following year. His mother remarried to James Addison Halsted on November 11, 1952. She died on December 1, 1975. As a college student at

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educati ...

he lived and traveled with his grandmother

and joined her in work on behalf of the United Nations. He served as national president of the Collegiate Council for the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

from 1958 to 1960, and also served on the board of the American Association for the United Nations.

Career

Boettiger served for 21 years as professor of human development at

Hampshire College Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mo ...

Amherst, Massachusetts Amherst () is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,263, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County (although the county seat ...

, of which he was founding faculty member. He created and was chairman of Hampshire's interdisciplinary Human Development Program. Leaving Hampshire to work with graduate students in clinical psychology, he was professor of psychology and dean of student affairs at the

California School of Professional Psychology The California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) was founded in 1969 by the California Psychological Association. It is part of the for-profit Alliant International University where each campus's Clinical Psychology Psy.D. and Ph.D. pr ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

and

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

. From 2007 to 2010 he was professor in the Research Institute of in

Vikersund Vikersund is a town of 3,232 (in 2020) inhabitants in the municipality capital of Modum, in the county of Viken, Norway. Overview Vikersund is located 30 kilometers south of Hønefoss and 40 kilometers northwest of Drammen. The village is lo ...

, Norway. He is chairman of the board and president of the Christopher Reynolds Foundation, on whose board he has served for nearly 50 years. Trained as a political scientist at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

before moving to a career in psychology, he taught at his alma mater

, was a consultant to and member of the Social Science Department of the

RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is finance ...

, and briefly served as a desk officer at the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other na ...

. He holds a Ph.D. in developmental and clinical psychology, for which his principal mentor was Erik H. Erikson of Harvard University. Earlier in his career, Boettiger wrote on educational and political themes, including two books on United States policy in Vietnam. He has an interest in the intersections of

social history Social history, often called the new social history, is a field of history that looks at the lived experience of the past. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in his ...

, memory, narrative, family dynamics, and life cycle human development, themes explored in his biography of his parents' lives and their family histories, ''A Love in Shadow,'' published by W.W. Norton in 1978. More recently he published a monograph, "A Resource for Healing and Renewal," about Modum Bad, a healing community, research center and psychiatric hospital in Vikersund, Norway. Since 2000, Boettiger has edited and written an online journal, "Reckonings: a Journal of Justice, Hope and History." He continues to edit research papers of clinicians and research psychologists at Modum Bad in Norway, and is a member of the Advisory Board of The Living New Deal in Berkeley, California.

Personal life

Boettiger married first Deborah Ann Bentley (b. May 6, 1938) on August 20, 1960 in

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, Yonkers, and Rochester. At the 2020 census, the city' ...

. They had two children: Adam John Boettiger (b. 1966) and Sara de Noyelles Boettiger (b. 1968). He married secondly Janet Roslyn Adler (b. February 20, 1941) on July 21, 1971. They had two children: Joshua Adler Boettiger (b. 1973) and Paul Woolf Adler Boettiger (b. 1977). He married thirdly Nancy Smalley (b. April 3, 1941) in June 1989. All three of these marriages ended in divorce. He was married for a fourth time to

Leigh McCullough Leigh McCullough (June 5, 1945 – June 7, 2012) was an American psychotherapist, researcher, educator, and the pioneer of short-term dynamic psychotherapy (STDP). Her treatment model focused on the learned fears of experiencing certain emotions, o ...

, who before her death in 2012 was clinical professor of psychology at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is cons ...

and Director of the Research Institute at Modum Bad Psychiatric Center in

, Norway. Boettiger also has eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

References

External links

Reckonings, A Journal of Hope, Justice and History
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boettiger, John Roosevelt 1939 births Bulloch family Delano family Hampshire College faculty Living people Livingston family John Roosevelt Boettiger Schuyler family Amherst College faculty American psychologists Academics from Washington (state) Educators from Seattle Scientists from Seattle 20th-century American scientists 21st-century American scientists 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American writers 21st-century American writers Educators from California Scientists from California Clinical psychologists Developmental psychologists American clinical psychologists