Friedrich Försterling: January 25, 1953 – August 6, 2007

Abstract

On August 6, 2007 Friedrich Forsterling died at the age of 54, a year after receiving a terminal diagnosis. It was one of his core beliefs that it is logically not possible to make a global overall evaluation of a human being, because any person consists of literally millions of different deeds and traits. We agree with him that even after the death of a person it is not possible to do such a final evaluation. Therefore, in the following we try to simply describe his professional life, his belief in rationality, his persistence in his scientific work, and his humorous equanimity. Friedrich Forsterling was born in Braunschweig, Germany on January 25, 1953. He studied psychology at the Universities of Graz and Salzburg in Austria, where he received his Ph.D. in 1977. During this period, he developed his interests in attribution theory and cognitive behavior modification. To develop his expertise in these areas, he pursued advanced training as a Postdoctoral Scholar for two years, first in 1977 at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he studied with Bernard Weiner and subsequently at the Institute for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) in New York, NY, where he received clinical supervision from Albert Ellis. These experiences provided the foundation for his conviction that attribution theory could be a key element in cognitive behavior modification. When he returned to Germany in 1979, he acquired a position as lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bielefeld, under the direction of Wulf–Uwe Meyer, where he Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 27, No. 2, 2008, pp. i–iv