Description: Gerald R. Patterson, Ph.D.
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Dr. Gerald R. Patterson has published two thought-provoking and beautifully written memoirs, A Guide’s Tale (2009) and Free and Moving (2012). In these two books, Dr. Patterson describes how his love of the wilderness and passion for science have inspired him to explore the north country by canoe and develop new theories that have changed the field of child and family psychology. Now, for the first time, we are invited to share his incredible journey through uncharted waters.
A Guides Tale traces the beginning of this journey back to Dr. Patterson’s upbringing in northern Minnesota where he was raised in a lakeside cabin with the wilderness at his back door. Through a series of stories told as though sitting around a campfire, Dr. Patterson describes how he developed the outdoor skills that were required for the rite of passage into manhood in his tight-knit family. As an adolescent and young man he worked for ten years as a canoe guide in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) o
A Guide’s Tale describes how serving as an infantryman in World War II provided an unexpected catalyst that changed Dr. Patterson’s life forever. The GI Bill helped him attend college and earn a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Patterson soon launched his research career when several major studies were published demonstrating that the techniques he learned in graduate school were ineffective when applied to delinquent and aggressive children.