Virginia Douglas has played a critical role in
researching cognitive deficits in Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD) as well as in shaping the direction of clinical
psychology training in Canada. She has been a trailblazer for women in
psychology, serving as the second female president of the Canadian
Psychological Association (1970) and the first female chair of the
psychology department at McGill University (1983).
Douglas was
born in London, Ontario on 28th January 1927 into a Scottish family
where “education was everything.” She began her post-secondary education
in English and history at Queen’s University, but quickly developed a
keen interest in experimental psychology. Her education came to a
temporary halt when she married in the third year of university and
moved with her husband to Sarnia, Ontario where she worked as a social
worker for the Children’s Aid Society. When he chose to do his master’s
degree at the University of Michigan, Douglas was able to follow and
pursue her own interest in graduate work and earned master’s degrees in
both psychology and social work there. She continued on to a PhD in
psychology at University of Michigan where there was strong emphasis on
the scientist-practitioner model, a model she would both integrate into
her own practice and promote to others.
Following her husband
again, in 1958, Douglas got a job at McGill University to train
psychology students as practitioners; this despite the tension
surrounding the legitimacy of applied psychology, which was reflected in
a salary which “was fiendishly low.” At the time of Douglas’ hire,
McGill’s clinical program stopped at the master’s level and there were
fears that applied psychology would take away from the discipline’s
fight to become respected as a science. Douglas eventually succeeded in
convincing her colleagues that doctoral students were not going to
become “second class psychiatrists,” but “first class psychologists.”
This resulted in a PhD program in clinical psychology, based on the
scientist-practitioner model and with a strong foundation in empirical
research.
Another victory for Douglas was the “sit in” she staged
with Muriel Stern, protesting the segregation of female faculty from the
main Faculty Club. While the sit-in had many male supporters and
resulted in the amalgamation of dining areas for men and women, the win
was tougher than they had anticipated, being voted against by one third
of the faculty. Despite these frictions which reflect the cultural and
social atmosphere of the 1950’s and 60’s in Canada, Douglas speaks
fondly of her colleagues, describing the department as one of “mutual
respect [with] a live and let live atmosphere.”
Douglas branched
outside of the university to shape clinical psychology in Canada. In the
1960s she was invited to participate in the Penticton and Couchiching
conferences devoted to the science of psychology and clinical training
in Canada, respectively. During her tenure as Canadian Psychological
Association President, in 1971 she helped author The Future of Canadian
Psychology – a phone book-sized tome that detailed a path for clinical
psychology training. Douglas carried these efforts on to the
international scale, promoting psychology in Cuba during a sabbatical
year and later on an international delegation to China as a member of
Canada’s Science-Technology organization.
Douglas remains best
known, however, for her research on ADHD. As part of her appointment at
McGill, she held privileges at the Montreal Children’s Hospital where
she was invited to work with Gabby Weiss and John Weary, two
psychiatrists studying hyperactivity in children. Thereafter, she became
one of the first researchers to focus on the cognitive functioning of
children identified as hyperactive, including their attention,
inhibition, learning, memory, and motivation. Two of her earliest papers
in the field, “Studies on the hyperactive child: VIII. five-year
follow-up” (1971) and “Stop, look, and listen! The problem of sustained
attention and impulse control in hyperactive and normal children” (1972)
went on to become “Citation Classics”, indicating their high frequency
of citations in the social and behavioral sciences.
Douglas’ “joy
of research” and “true love in the science” of psychology has been
recognized in the multiple awards she has received, including the
Distinguished Contribution Award in 1991 from the Section on Child
Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association, the
Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Award
in 1996 in recognition of outstanding professional achievements in the
field of Attention Deficit Disorder, and the Gold Medal for
Distinguished Lifetime Contributions Award from the Canadian
Psychological Association in 2004. Douglas is now retired from McGill
University, where she enjoys the status of Professor Emerita.
She resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia |
