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I had a superb mentor at McGill University, my graduate supervisor, Dr. Robert O. Pihl, now Professor Emeritus. Dr. Pihl had an encyclopedic knowledge of the psychological research literature. There was almost no research topic that I could touch upon in all my reading that he could not expand upon with a relevant reference. His door was always open. He was singularly unaffected by any intellectual jealousy. If his students had a better idea, he encouraged it.
He had an incredibly prolific research career, publishing more than 300 research papers. In 2009, Bob was awarded the Canadian Psychological Association’s Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Canadian Psychology. But this only told a very small part of the story.
I was privileged to be at his retirement party, which was attended by a good number of his collaborators and friends and, more to the point, his former graduate students. Each of them had a tale, often told emotionally, of the tremendous support that Bob had provided to the development of their careers—always professionally, sometimes psychologically, sometimes financially—and of the times he went far out of his way to lay out a path for success to those he mentored. There were dozens of people in attendance whose lives he had transformed completely, including mine.
I really didn’t know anything about graduate school when I was accepted. I wrote a rather creative letter, explaining to potential supervisors what I was like. I remember pointing out that I could drink copious amounts of red wine, that I could type like a mad dog, that I read everything I could get my hands on, and that I was possessed by a deadly and perhaps somewhat manic curiosity.
I had a good academic record, and the GRE scores necessary to acceptance into a clinical program, but it took a man of daring and courage to accept me as a student. We’ve had a thirty-five-year collaboration, and I love him like a father. And I was not the only one at his retirement party who felt that way. Far from it. Is that the tyrannical patriarchy, based on the misuse and exploitation of the worker? I can’t imagine a more cynical way of conceptualizing such a relationship.
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