Letter to Psychologist: Lisa Osborne, Ph.D. (1998-1999) 9/2/98

TO: Lisa Osborne
\FROM: Gary Freedman
DATE: September 2, 1998
RE: Attached Article Concerning Lynn Margulis

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I submit a copy of an article originally published in the New York Times (January 14, 1996) about a microbiologist named Lynn Margulis, whose scientific thinking is considered unusually original and who is unmoved by peer rejection of, or professional attacks on, her work.

I believe it is useful to think about how you would do psychotherapy with someone like Margulis, or even why someone like Margulis would submit herself for psychotherapy.

Another important issue is how you distinguish between a person who holds, even in the face of social rejection, to a view of the world that is not shared by others who happens to be paranoid and a person who holds to a view of the world that is not shared by others who happens to be original and courageous in her thinking.

I am intrigued that there might be an underlying relation between seemingly unrelated aspects of personality: between the cognitive aspects of personality that account for originality of perception and the dynamic aspects of personality that account for a need for mastery and the ability to dispense with peer approval. It may be no mere accident of personality development that these specific cognitive and dynamic issues are prominently expressed in certain individuals.