Professor
BA, Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
PhD, London School of Economics & Political Science
Dr. Sussman is a sociologist who embraces an interdisciplinary approach. Her background includes post doctoral research at the Tavistock Institute in London, studying with the “Interactionist” school of sociologists, and working as a post doc with R.D. Laing’s research team on Families and Schizophrenia. Currently director of research at Sanville, she teaches the research seminars, the epistemological colloquium and is available for dissertation advisement.
Dr. Sussman has extensive research and teaching experience specializing in qualitative research methods and epistemology. Her dissertation research [A Sociological Study of English Aestheticism, 1885-1910: With special reference to aesthetic withdrawal as a social phenomenon, its sources, imagery and social-psychological components] a study of a group of poets through analysis of their work, their lives and their socio-cultural context, reveals what remains her continuing concern with the relation between culture/social context and the individual psyche, as well as her interests in social deviance and in literature. She is also a practicing and exhibiting painter.
Currently Dr. Sussman is a private consultant on qualitative and theoretical dissertation research. She has served on various other faculties, including the Center for Psychological Studies, Wright Institute, Hayward State University, San Francisco Art Institute (Humanities), and held research positions with Dr. Margaret Singer, National Institute of Mental Health; Agnews State Hospital; Kaiser Medical Center, (as project Co-director). Her independent research includes a field study of interaction in a school for autistic children (see publications). She has given numerous presentations and published in Views Quarterly (London) and the American J. of Orthopsychiatry.
Selected Presentations
"The Culture of Psychotherapy & Psychotherapy in the Larger Culture," The Sanville Institute, Fall Convocation 2006
“Qualitative Research and the Clinician: An introduction to Grounded Theory applied to clinically relevant problems” Paper delivered at The 7th Conference of the National Membership Committee on Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work as part of a panel on qualitative research presented by CICSW. New York, 2000.
“On Establishing Connections Between Patient and Analyst: A dialogue between clinician and researcher” with Samoan Barish, DSW, PhD. Paper presented at the 4th National Clinical Conference, Committee on Psychoanalysis of the National Federation of Societies for Clinical Social Work, Los Angeles, October, l992.
"An Epistemology and a Method for Research in Clinical Social Work” with Rosemary Lukton, DSW. Paper accepted for presentation, Annual Conference of the National Association of Social Workers. Philadelphia, November 1988.
"Clinicians as Social Researchers” with Elise Blumenfeld, PhD and Karlin Hanks, PhD. Paper presented at the NASW National Conference on Clinical Social Work, San Francisco, September, 1986.
“Why Are There No Middle Aged Women in Fairy Tales?: Two studies in adult development” with Elise Blumenfeld, PhD and Karlin Hanks, PhD. Paper presented at the meetings of the California Society of Clinical Social Workers. Los Angeles, October, 1985.
Four Public lectures given at the San Francisco Art Institute, 1972 & 73:
"Surrealism as a Mode of Thought and a Question to the Existing Structures of Thought." "The Family and Women's Identity.” “The poetry of Keith Barnes and Jana Harris: Two Poets of Family Life, a masculine and feminine point of view.”
Selected Publications and Reports
A RESEARCH GUIDE. unpublished manuscript, l982. A handbook that reviews basic research methods, concepts and philosophies. Prepared for the CA Institute for Clinical Social Work.
"Perceptions of Higher Education: Why Be in Graduate School?” and “Stress in Graduate School" Part I on Growth and Development Among Doctoral Students in an Innovative Doctoral Program. Report to Dean Judith Blanton, PhD, Graduate Program in Psychosocial Development and Education, The Wright Institute, Berkeley, CA, 1981.
"Psychological Factors in Respiratory Allergy.” Jacob, Freeman, Alward, & Sussman. Report to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 1970.
"The Social Awareness of Autistic Children” with June Sklar, MA. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 34(5), October, 1969.
