I am nearly certain this this is incorrect. Back in 1938, the manager of the Chicago Cubs (Charlie Grimm) was quoted as saying that he didn't want a "headshrinker" around when he heard that the owner, PK Wrigley, had hired Illinois psychologist Coleman Griffith to help the team.
Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== Mike Palij wrote: > I just got a copy of an article by Warner Silas (1982) entitled > "What is a headshrinker" which appeared in the American > Journal of Psychotherapy. Silas reviews the concept and > points out that the first use of the term in popular media > appears to be the November 27, 1950 issue of Time magazine > in a story about Hopalong Cassidy. Headshrinker is > asterisked in the text and a footnote states "Hollywood > jargon for a psychiatrist". One can locate the article online > at the Time magazine website and it corroborates Silas' > account. > > A search of newspapers via Proquest shows that the first > use of headshrinker in "newspapers of record" is in 1955 > in an article in the NY Times and an article in the Washington > Post by Dorothy Kilgallen. Oddly, earliest article in the > online database for "Variety" that mentions shrink in an > is a 1980 review of "Dressed to Kill". > > So, it appears that headshrinker was used as slang in the > late 1940s in Hollywood/Los Angeles and came into > popular use at the start of the 1950s. It is still unclear > who was the first person to use the term to refer to a > psychiatrist (perhaps an unhappy "client" ;-). > > -Mike Palij > New York University > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > --- > To make changes to your subscription contact: > > Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) > > > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
