Background

Kalman J. Kaplan was born on October 22, 1941, in Chicago, Illinois, United States, to Lewis C. and Edith (Saposnik) Kaplan.

Education

Kaplan attended Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1959. Then, in 1963, he received a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University. In 1966, he also received a Master of Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in 1968.

Career

Kalman J. Kaplan, Ph.D. is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of the Program in Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Judaism at Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies. He is also a licensed clinical psychologist in Illinois and Michigan.

Dr. Kaplan has retired as a Professor of Psychology at Wayne State University and held visiting positions at a number of universities, including The University of California, Davis, Harvard University, Boston University, Northwestern University Medical School, and Tel Aviv University, Israel. He has been Editor of the Journal of Psychology and Judaism and on the Editorial Board of Omega.

In 2007-2010 Dr. Kaplan was awarded a start-up grant from The John Templeton Foundation to develop an online program in Religion, Spirituality, and Mental Health at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. His program in Biblical Psychology has enrolled over 200 students from all over the world, including almost 80% opinion leaders.

Kalman is also a member of the ongoing Faith Communities Task Force of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. He subsequently has applied this work to an evidence-based approach to suicide prevention with regard to applying the lessons learned in seven biblical suicide prevention stories to risk factors portrayed in seven matched Graeco-Roman suicide or otherwise self-destructive narratives (i.e., Elijah against Ajax, Job against Zeno, David against Coriolanus, Jonah against Narcissus, Moses against Oedipus, Rebecca against Phaedra, and Ruth against Antigone) to fourteen clinical patients.

Achievements

• Dr. Kaplan is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association, was the co-recipient with Dr. Martin Harrow of the 1998 Alexander Gralnick Award for outstanding original research in suicide and schizophrenia, and was a 2006-2007 and 2011-2012 Fulbright Fellow at Tel Aviv University. Dr. Kaplan has published fourteen books, many book chapters and close to 100 published articles. He has also given over 150 presentations, both nationally and internationally.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Seven Habits of the Good Life: How the Biblical Virtues Free Us from the Seven Deadly Sins

    (In The Seven Habits of the Good Life, the authors highlig...)

    2006
  • Right to Die Versus Sacredness of Life

    (This volume, published as a special issue from "OMEGA - J...)

    2000
  • Biblical Stories for Psychotherapy and Counseling: A Sourcebook

    (Integrate Biblical spirituality into psychotherapy and ex...)

    2001
  • A Psychology of Hope: An Antidote to the Suicidal Pathology of Western Civilization 1993
  • Jewish Approaches to Suicide, Martyrdom, and Euthanasia 1998
  • Living With Schizophrenia 1997
  • Tilt: Teaching Individuals To Live Together 1998
  • Family: Biblical and Psychological Foundations 1984

Views

Dr. Kaplan has published widely in the area of interpersonal and international relations, the emerging field of biblical psychology and psychotherapy , schizophrenia and suicide/suicide prevention.

He argues that modern psychology and psychiatry have been implicitly based on classical Greek rather than Biblical narratives and thinking, and suggests that a Biblical psychology would produce a more positive hopeful perspective.

Quotations: “I have long been fascinated by the clash between Athens and Jerusalem with regard to western civilizations. It has surfaced in the current data regarding the right to die. I had the opportunity to be the lead psychologist in the Detroit Free Press study of the Jack Kevorkian cases, and we published this unsettling information in Right to Die versus Sacredness of Life."

Membership

Kaplan was a member American Psychological Association, American Association Suicidology, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, International Association for Transactional Analysis.

Interests

• Movies, music, literature, politics, religion, Israel

• Sport & Clubs

  swimming, chess, baseball

Connections

In 1965, Kaplan was married to Melissa, but their marriage ended in 1975, and Kaiman married Moriah Markus in 1975. Kaplan has one child, Daniel L.

Father:

Lewis C. Kaplan

Mother:

Edith (Saposnik) Kaplan

Son:

Daniel L. Kaplan

ex-wife:

Melissa Kaplan

Wife:

Moriah Markus