William Ryan (psychologist)

William J. Ryan, Jr. (September 20, 1923 – June 7, 2002) was a psychologist, author, and civil rights activist. He is best known for his exposure of the sociological phenomenon of "blaming the victim", which he articulated in his 1971 book of the same name. Ryan's work is considered a major structuralist rebuttal to the Moynihan Report.^[1] The 1965 report had mainly attributed the high poverty rate among African Americans to a "tangle of pathology" in Negro families,^[2] such as a preponderance of out-of-wedlock births, absent fathers, and single-mother households. Ryan rejected this explanation because, in his view, it confused cause and effect by blaming the victim of the problem.

William Ryan
Born	(1923-09-20)September 20, 1923
Died	June 7, 2002(2002-06-07) (aged 78) Boston, Massachusetts
Known for	Idea of "Victim blaming"
Academic background
Education	Boston University
Academic work
Discipline	Psychologist
Institutions	Boston College
Notable works	Blaming the Victim (1971)

Early life

Ryan was born in Everett, Massachusetts on September 20, 1923, the son of William J. Ryan and Marion C. Ryan (Evans).^[3] He joined the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He was a non-combatant, working as a cryptographer in the Caribbean, "doing coding and decoding".^[4] Upon leaving military service at age 25, he was able to enter college (possibly Boston University) because of the GI Bill of Rights, which paid full tuition for veterans. As an undergraduate, he grew interested in psychology and earned a degree in that field. He subsequently obtained staff positions in Boston Psychopathic Hospital, the South Shore Guidance Center, and the Mount Aubum Hospital.^[5]

In 1951, Ryan married Phyllis Milgroom (Phyllis M. Ryan), a daughter of Russian immigrants. She was a graduate of Northeastern University, a psychiatric social worker in the state mental health system and, like him, a civil rights activist.

Career

Ryan went on to do graduate work at Boston University where he obtained a PhD in 1958 in clinical psychology.^[6] But he soon realized he was not deeply interested in that specialization. Instead, he was drawn to social and community psychology. He also became increasingly engaged by social issues, social problems, and matters of equality.^[7]

By 1965, he was serving as a faculty member in the Harvard Medical School Laboratory of Community Psychiatry.^[8] In 1969, he was hired by Boston College, where he held the position of Professor of Psychology for 25 years.^[9]

Soon after Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, was made public, Ryan voiced his opposition. In a November 1965 article in The Nation, he wrote that the Moynihan Report "seduces the reader into believing that it is not racism and discrimination but the weaknesses and defects of the Negro himself that account for the present status of inequality between Negro and white."^[10] Over the next few years, Ryan broadened his critique to encompass other similar sociological works, such as the 1966 Coleman Report,^[11] which Ryan saw as further examples of "How to Blame the Victim".^[12] In 1971, he published Blaming the Victim, and then revised and expanded it for a mass-market paperback edition in 1976.

In 1993, Ryan received an award for his distinguished contribution to theory and research in community psychology from the Society for Community Research and Action: Division 27 of the American Psychological Association.^[13] However, in 1996, he concluded that 'unfortunately psychology has become the science of understanding internal individual differences, which leads to kinds of ideological distortions that support inequality.'^[14]

On June 7, 2002, William Ryan died in a Boston hospital. He was 78.^[3][6]

Publications

Articles

• (With Saul Cooper and Bellenden R. Hutcheson) Ryan, William (1959). "Classroom screening for emotional disturbance". American Psychologist. 14: 341.
• Ryan, William (1965). "Savage discovery: The Moynihan Report". The Nation. 201 (22 November): 380-384. Reprinted in Rainwater and Yancey (1967: 457-466), see below under 'Further reading'.
• —— (1965). "The new genteel racism". The Crisis. 72 (10): 623-631, 644.
• —— (1966). "Citizens in mental health--what are they for?". Mental Hygiene. 50 (4): 597-600. An extract entitled "Citizen" and Mental Health' is available at Rehabilitation Record. 1967. 8 (March-April): 6. Accessed 8 December 2024.
• Ryan, William; et al. (1967). "Feedback from our readers". Trans-action. 4 (3): 62-64. Retrieved 6 December 2024.
• Ryan, William (1969). "Community care in historical perspective: Implications for mental health services and professionals". Canada's Mental Health. Supplement (60): March-April.
• —— (1971). "Blaming the victim: The folklore of cultural deprivation". This Magazine is About Schools. 5 (Spring) (2): 97-117. (See Connexions. Accessed 8 December 2024.)
• —— (1971). "Emotional disorder as a social problem: Implications for mental health programs". American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. 41 (4): 638–645. PMID 5558616. Reprinted in Denner, Bruce; Price, Richard H., eds. (1973). Community Mental Health Social Action and Inaction. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Windton. p. 22-30. ISBN 0-03-085651-5. Retrieved 8 December 2024.
• —— (1971). "Unsocialized medicine". Contemporary Psychology. XVI (4): 256-258.
• —— (1994). "Many cooks, brave men, apples, and oranges: How people think about equality". American Journal of Community Psychology. 22 (1): 25-35.

Chapters

• Ryan, William (1967). "Preventive Services in Mental Health Programs". In Bloom, Bernard L.; Buck, Dorothy P. (eds.). Preventive services in Mental Health Programs: Proceedings of the Mental Health Institute at Salt Lake City, Utah, May 31- June 2, 1967. Boulder, Colorado: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.
• —— (1969). "A new mental health agenda". In Ryan, William (ed.). Distress in the city; essays on the design and administration of urban mental health services. Cleveland, Ohio: The Press of Case Western Reserve University. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
• —— (1969). "Distress in the city: A summary report of the Boston Mental Health Survey". In Ryan, William (ed.). Distress in the city; essays on the design and administration of urban mental health services. Cleveland, Ohio: The Press of Case Western Reserve University. Retrieved 10 December 2024.
• —— (1971). "The social welfare client: Blaming the victim". In Kalz, A.J. (ed.). The Social Welfare Forum 1971 Official Proceedings, 98th Annual Forum, National Conference on Social Welfare, Dallas, Texas, May 16-May 21, 1971. New York: Columbia University Press.

Monographs

• Ryan, William; Morris, Laura B. (1967). Child welfare problems and potentials: A study of intake of child welfare agencies in metropolitan Boston. Monograph III. Boston, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Committee on Children and Youth.
• (With Ali Banuazizi) Ryan, William (1972). Mental health planning in metropolitan areas Community Psychology Monograph No. 1. Boston: Boston College.
• (With Allan Sloan, Mania Seferi and Elaine Werby) Ryan, William (1974). All in together: An evaluation of mixed-income multi-family housing. Boston: Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency.

Books

• Ryan, William, ed. (1969). Distress in the City. Cleveland, Ohio: The Press of Case Western Reserve University. Retrieved 27 January 2025.
• Ryan, William (1971). Blaming the Victim. New York: Pantheon. ISBN 978-0-85514-010-6.
• —— (1976). Blaming the Victim (Revised, updated ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-394-72226-9.
• —— (1982). Equality. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-394-71185-0.