Soon, Osborn noticed she had no short-term memory and had problems
processing information. Finally realizing she was suffering from
traumatic brain injury, Osborn spent two years in NewYork University's
brain trauma program learning how to cope with the injury's behavioral
and emotional effects. She developed strategies for overcoming the
problems associated with her short-term memory loss, such as using notes
and alarms to remind her to walk the dog.
Throughout the program, Osborn kept a journal of her experiences,
including her depression upon discovering she could no longer work as a
physician. For seven years, Osborn transformed her journal into a book,
eventually publishing Over My Head (Andrews McMeel, 1998), a funny and
insightful story recounting the new life she had created.
"I wrote a book that I wish someone had written for me," Osborn
says. "I wanted people to understand that there was a reason to hope. It
makes sense to aspire to the improbable."
Currently, Osborn speaks worldwide about the issues concerning head
traumas. She also enjoys cooking and gardening, activities for which she
previously had no inclination. As Osborn says, "I have a wonderful life,
[although] it's a very different life. You have to recognize that you're
not going to regain what you've lost, but you can take steps and move
forward into creating a new life."
-- Amy Weiss
FRED MCFEELY ROGERS
"Would you be mine, could you be mine, won't you be my neighbor?"
Since "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" debuted on PBS in 1968, millions have
watched Fred McFeely Rogers, better known as "Mister Rogers," open each
episode by singing this invitation.
Always a music lover, Rogers graduated from Florida's Rollins
College with a degree in music composition. Later, while pursuing a
career in television production, he secured an apprenticeship with NBC in
NewYork City to learn more about it.
"When I first saw what was called 'children's television' in the
early 1950s, I thought it was just slapstick and nonsense," Rogers says.
"I felt children deserved better." So he began working at a local
television station while attending the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
and the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Child Development.
He eventually created his program, writing the songs for each episode,
with lyrics like, you're learning how important you are/how important
each person you see can be/discovering each one's specialtyl is the most
important thing--all serving to bolster a child's self-esteem and
self-awareness.
"The more I learned about the `inner dramas' of childhood, the more
convinced I became that at our very core as human beings is the need to
know we are capable of giving and receiving love," Rogers says. His ideas
have since earned him several major awards including two George Foster
Peabody Awards, lifetime achievement awards from the Daytime Emmys,
Parents' Choice Awards and the Action for Children's Television
Award.
After generating nearly 1,000 episodes, Rogers will stop creating
new ones this August. But he will continue his advocacy for children
through his media company, Family Communications Inc., which he hopes
will help foster healthy communication within families.
-- Irena Choi Stern
PHILIP ZIMBARDO
Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., grew up in a poor Sicilian family and was
surrounded by racial prejudice in a South Bronx ghetto. Inspired by his
childhood experiences, Zimbardo studied and now teaches about a wide
variety of human behaviors and characteristics, including violence,
dissonance, shyness, madness and persuasion.
Zimbardo's most famed study is the Stanford Prison Experiment.
Conducted in 1971, it was cut short after only six days when the 24 male
college participants internalized their assigned roles as either
prisoners or guards to a cruel extreme. This research demonstrated the
power of social situations to influence personal identities and
morals.
Based on his research, Zimbardo established an experimental
treatment center to help shyness sufferers at Stanford University in
1975. Now called the Shyness Clinic, it helps clients throughout the
community improve aspects of their social functioning. His related book,
Shyness: What It Is, What to Do About It (Addison Wesley, 1977), is
currently in its seventh printing. In addition, Zimbardo's textbook,
Psychology and Life (Longman, 2000), is in its 16th edition and is the
oldest continuously selling psychology textbook in the U.S.
Zimbardo's research has earned him several awards, including the
California State Psychological Association's Distinguished Research
Contributor Award in 1977 and the Guze Award for Best Research in
Hypnosis in 1989. Widely recognized for his 33 years of inspirational
teaching, he most recently received the American Psychological
Association's (APA) Robert Daniels Teaching Excellence Award.
Having recently been elected to the presidency of the APA, Zimbardo
continues to teach psychology at Stanford. Does he have any plans to take
a break? "Not likely," he says. "That little, skinny kid who survived a
traumatic youth still lives in this rather bulky old body, still full of
energy, still optimistic, still ready to make a difference."
-- Carin Gorrell
CATHERINE MAURICE
