Leadership, for me, is living a life to help others. It is working with others within genuine, mutual dialogue and I-Thou relationships. Leadership is about doing and experiencing together. It is taking others with you along a common journey, showing the way by example and doing. The pace of the journey is a step-by-step process, ever evolving and being sensitive to the other person’s capacity to change, trust and grasp new self- knowledge.
As part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Ronald Ruff.
Ronald Ruff, Ph.D. received a B.A. in Psychology with French studies from Oberlin College, an M.S. in Counseling Psychology from George Williams College, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Illinois Institute of Technology. During his forty-eight years of practice, he has had extensive experience in psychological treatment, assessment, and consultation in health care, education, government, judicial systems, training, teaching, and research. Dr. Ruff has conducted individual, group, family, and marital therapy and psychological evaluations within outpatient and inpatient psychiatric hospital settings, and has considerable experience working with culturally, racially, educationally, and socioeconomically diverse populations. His new book, Raising Children to Thrive: Affect Hunger and Responsive, Sensitive Parenting, comes out June 11, 2024.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
The city in which I was raised, East Chicago, Indiana, offered me a basic education and foundation in getting along with people from different cultures, races, economic status, and vocational and educational backgrounds. I didn’t realize until I got older that such an enriching and diverse assimilation with other people’s ways of living served as my initial and intensive psychological internship. Those experiences prepared me well for my future occupation for becoming more sensitive and understanding of people.
When I speak with friends or family about growing up, we usually talk about my most cherished childhood memory: playing. I have fond recollections of playing alone with toy soldiers, knights in a castle, or my Jerry Mahoney ventriloquist puppet — or performing magic tricks, or making forts or tunnels through the snow. When I wasn’t playing alone, I engaged in “free play” with my friends. A buddy would drop by, or I’d go to his house, and we’d conjure up something to do. Sometimes we might stay inside and play with our trains or games. But usually, if the weather was good, we went outside to ride our bikes or play in the neighborhood park.
When I rode my bike through Prairie Park in East Chicago, Indiana, the towering cattails hid the inner areas and secret trails. After I found a trail that took me to the hobo camp near the railroad tracks, I made a habit of visiting and talking with them before and after they jumped the passing trains. I would sit with them by the campfire and pass the time.
Pickup games of baseball, basketball, or football after school gave us the chance to play, exercise, and make new pals. In autumn, we would carry a push broom to the park to sweep off the leaves covering the tennis court so we could play tennis. If we were lazy, we might just hit the street and toss a football around. Before beginning, though, we might rake the leaves into a big pile and make a fire in the street gutter, throw on some baking potatoes, and eat them at “halftime.” The alleys in my neighborhood provided another place to play. When we were little, we played hide-and-go-seek behind garbage cans. As we got older, we played basketball. My parents put up a backboard and hoop atop our garage. Those were happy times.
Fortunately, my parents didn’t impose a curfew on me. They knew that I’d be hungry after running around so much and would be home for dinner or before it got dark. In our neighborhood, neighbors looked out for each other, which gave me a sense of freedom to roam, play, think, explore, grow, and just be a kid.
Today, most children don’t have the chance to “free play.” In many cases, children’s daily routines lack playtime of any kind. Now, play is based on structured and programmed activities, and as soon as their children are old enough to participate, parents fill their calendars with play dates and structured activities like gymnastics, swimming, soccer, and dance. Such activities, in and of themselves, are rewarding. But children have little time to just play, unrestricted, without rushing here and there to a formal program or lesson.
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or changed your life? Can you share a story about that?
As a preteen, I was moved while reading Of Mice and Men. I felt sad for the many lost, poor, disenfranchised, lonely, hard-working people merely toiling day-to-day to make ends meet. The only thing that kept them going were their dreams. With the case of George and Lennie, they had a real friendship. They looked after one another and truly cared about each other’s welfare.
I think that Steinbeck’s literary classic resonated so powerfully with me is because it reminded me of my father when I first read it. My father was always an advocate of the hard-working, down-and-out, isolated, more marginalized, prejudiced members of the community who had nobody to turn to. Additionally, his own family had lost their money and home during the Great Depression. He worked hard in the steel mill, got a football scholarship to college at Indiana University and then graduated law school. My father always told me that “I can learn from anyone” and be “Be myself”.” My father lived his life caring about others, often less fortunate, good, hard-working people.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I first started college, I wanted to take premed courses. I took organic chemistry. On our first semester’s final exam, there was only one question: “Write the Krebs cycle.” My mind went totally blank. I could not remember any of the reactions or formulas. I knew then that I was fooling myself. I dropped all science classes and majored in psychology and French studies. I learned that I had to be myself and how much I cared about helping people.
Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?
My primary aim is to help children to live more self-fulfilled, happier lives as socially, emotionally and overall psychologically well-developed persons. Within the best practice model of Responsive, Sensitive Parenting, parents and children will become more fully attached and whole. I believe that my book will have a significant impact for several reasons:
- It will help to remediate the national youth mental health crisis.
- It will help to decrease the incidence of lonliness.
- It will decrease the incidence of youth addiction to computer screens.
- It will decrease the incidence of reading underachievement
- It will increase children’s resilience
- It will decrease the incidence of psychological disorders
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
I met Gladys when she was eight years old and at a residential treatment center (RTC), just after I graduated from college. I was a residential technician working the midnight shift. My main responsibility was to wake the children in the morning, help them get ready for the day, and take them to breakfast and then school. Gladys had never attended school. She had been removed from her home by the Department of Child Services (DCS) due to charges of severe physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Gladys had essentially served as her father’s slave. She was chained to her bed during the day while her father was at work. When he returned home, she made him dinner.
Not long after she was in our care, I entered Gladys’s room one morning to wake her and take her to our in-house school for the first time. She was sound asleep, so I tapped on her shoulder. She awoke startled and angry and lunged at me, scratching my face and tearing my polo shirt. Fortunately, we were able to work through the crisis, and after Gladys settled down, I walked her into a classroom for the first time in her life.
Twelve years later, I was having lunch in the staff cafeteria of a psychiatric hospital. Among the people sitting at my table was a clinical social worker.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Sandy. I’m new on the staff.”
After exchanging pleasantries, we spoke about Sandy’s previous job.
“I worked at the state psychiatric hospital,” she said. “My final assignment before leaving the hospital was to fly with a nineteen-year-old female patient to Florida for placement in an adult group home. She was in the state mental health system for most of her life. She was hospitalized for several years at a residential treatment center after her father enslaved her.”
I knew right away who she was talking about. “Is her name Gladys?”
Sandy gasped. She caught her breath and stared at me in disbelief. “How did you know?”
“I was her counselor at her first residential treatment center eleven years ago.”
“She’s gone from one treatment setting to another her entire life,” Sandy replied with a nod. “She’s the angriest and saddest child I’ve ever known. She left that initial RTC where you met her when she was ten and lived with an aunt. Because of her poor conduct, educational deficits, and depression, she went to a special education school. Her Aunt Alice really tried to show her love. She fixed up her married daughter’s former bedroom and let Gladys pick out the color of the paint, bedding, and new carpet. For her first Christmas, Alice surprised Gladys with a puppy. She named her dog Cuddles. Gladys really took care of that dog. I think that she felt safe with it.
“After about a year at her aunt’s, Gladys made a serious suicide attempt. She overdosed on street drugs and was in the ICU for days. After that, she was placed in a long-term RTC for three years. She did pretty well and was discharged to her first therapeutic foster home when she was thirteen. Throughout adolescence, she made two other suicide attempts, was expelled from school for beating up a student, and ran away with a twenty-year-old man. She was court-ordered at fifteen to remain in an RTC until they determined she wasn’t a danger to herself or others. She was finally placed in a therapeutic group home out of state. She loves animals and has always wanted to be a veterinarian, so I helped find her this group home in Florida that’s near a zoo. She’s enrolled in a training program to become a zookeeper. I also spoke to the local welfare department. They’re going to get Gladys a service dog.”
Four years after talking with Sandy, I received the following email:
Hello Dr. Ruff,
I am forwarding you this email I just received from Gladys. I think you would be interested in reading it.
Dear Ms. Sandy,
I haven’t talked with you in a long while, but I remember you told me I could write you anytime.
Since you brought me to Florida four years ago, a lot of things have happened to me. I stayed in the adult therapeutic group home for three years. During that time, I became a certified zookeeper. As you know, I love animals. I have been working at the county zoo steady for the past two years.
About a year ago, I met Alejandro. He is Cuban. We both speak Spanish together. He has a good job as a union construction worker. His whole family came to America before he was born.
I left the group home just before last Christmas. Alejandro and I moved into a two-bedroom patio home, and Cuddles (number two) also lives with us. I still take Prozac, but I don’t have thoughts to hurt myself. I go to an outpatient support group once a week.
The best thing is that I know Alejandro loves me and I trust he won’t hurt me. His parents and brothers and sisters also care about me. His sisters and brothers call me “little sis,” and his mother says I am her child too. They call me a lot, and we visit them all the time and celebrate holidays and birthdays together. I never had a family before. I never had a chance to just be a child. I didn’t have a mother, and my father molested and abused me. I was just an object. I now have people who love me and care for me. Alejandro’s family gave me my first birthday party ever last month. I am twenty-four now but feel like I am just having my childhood and feel like a real person.
I do not feel all the pain and anger anymore. I know I am a good person and not evil. Alejandro knows all about what happened to me and tells me that he loves me just for who I am.
I am going to start classes at the local community college. I am not sure what I want to be, maybe a medical tech or even a teacher. I learned how to swim and go to the pool a lot and also run. The exercise helps me to relax. I finally sleep good at night and don’t have any nightmares or flashbacks.
Alejandro’s family is real religious. I never believed in God, but I went to church for the first time last week. I am even thinking I might visit my father in prison.
I hope you are doing good too.
Thank you for helping me and getting me my therapy dog!
Your former patient,
Gladys
What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
Yes, there were a series of events preceding the start of my project. I had retired and moved to Phoenix, Arizona after forty-seven years of practice. I enjoyed visiting our grandchildren and children here and in California and seeing our daughter back in Chicago. However, I still had a desire to help children and parents. Though I did not want to return to seeing patients, I had always wanted to write.
I had encountered thousands of parents with only good intentions to help their children but they had no book or workbook to guide them. First and foremost, after retiring, I wanted to find a way to continue to help others. I felt that writing a book would satisfy that desire while also allowing the writer in me to emerge. I concluded that, after fifty years of listening to thousands of people, it was finally time for me to speak in my own voice.
Second, after thinking about my field and conducting extensive research, I realized that some dramatic new findings have occurred since I first started. It was then that I decided to provide those findings in a manner that might positively influence parenting and child development. As Toni Morrison said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
Third, these past five years have been very personally enriching. After retiring following five decades of intensive, therapeutic, interpersonal relationships with people, I delved into professional literature. I had ample time to visit the ASU library, take out about two hundred books, and read over a thousand journal articles. This was like working on a post-practice dissertation. When I first endeavored in my doctoral dissertation, it was an intensive academic project based on minimal professional experiences. This time, it was the other way around. I had the opportunity to superimpose extensive, interdisciplinary, pioneering research upon all of my years of clinical, practical, and lived experiences. It was most exciting and personally rewarding to integrate and synthesize state-of-the-art research and revolutionary findings in early child development and neuroscience upon my own best practice and evidence-based models of treatment. I was excited to again have the time to read and discover my field and gain new knowledge. It was also very humbling. In Einstein’s words, “The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.”
My goal has been to use the many positive relationships I have had the good fortune of enjoying, along with my educational and life experiences, to help repair the world in some small way while adding to the common good. Helping others to ease their pain and to become healthier, happier, more fully functioning children, adolescents, and adults has been a privilege and source of much satisfaction.
Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
I recall treating an eight-year-old boy diagnosed with autism. For each of his weekly appointments, we sat on the carpet and played. Rather, he largely engaged in self-play, cut off, seemingly oblivious to my physical presence. Our sessions lacked social-emotional engagement, verbal communication, or any type of meaningful, noticeable interaction. After nine months, we enjoyed a major breakthrough. My patient entered, sat down, and began to speak to me in complete sentences. He had a smile on his face and was emotive. It was as if the prior nine months of non-verbalization had never occurred.
I gained tremendous insight from the case. I realized that people, especially children, have a built-in readiness. A child’s self-trust and trust of others differs greatly. A central axiom of psychology is that all behavior is purposeful. We can never immediately or easily understand another person’s external behavior. Conversely, the same can be said of our own inability to comprehend our behavioral responses — or lack thereof. Yet, within close physical interpersonal space, we can develop a sense of trust, rapport, and even a therapeutic bond with few spoken words.
I also learned that being empathic and displaying genuine compassion for another human being is a powerful means of helping a scared or troubled child. Freud called psychoanalysis “talking therapy.” Listening therapy, though, also matters. Both can be therapeutic. The key is to intuit which one is appropriate in the moment.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
Here are three things the community, society and politicians can do to significantly improve the social, emotional, cognitive, and overall psychological functioning of children:
- There must be intensive community-wide focus and legislation to address the need for prenatal training for expecting parents, in the earliest stage, in responsive, sensitive parenting.
- There should be legislation for mothers to have a six-month paid leave of absence from work to permit her to practice responsive, sensitive parenting which allows her and her newborn to form the essential attachment bond.
- Preschools, pediatricians, caretakers, fathers and grandparents must be educated as to the critical importance of the science of child development particularly in the first three years of a child’s life.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Leadership, for me, is living a life to help others. It is working with others within genuine, mutual dialogue and I-Thou relationships. Leadership is about doing and experiencing together. It is taking others with you along a common journey, showing the way by example and doing. The pace of the journey is a step-by-step process, ever-evolving and being sensitive to the other person’s capacity to change, trust and grasp new self-knowledge.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
1 . I wish someone told me that being a dedicated psychologist is sometimes a sacrifice.
Why? It is because I often felt that I did not spend enough time with my children.
A story is as follows:
I once came home at 8:30 pm. Upon walking in the door, one of my daughters said, “What are you doing here, Dad”? I replied, “Don’t I live here”? The real meaning is that my daughter was not used to seeing me until the next morning on a Thursday night. I had a group that ran until 9:30.
2 . I wish that someone had told me to work less hours and to exercise more and spend more time meeting friends for coffee, lunch, or a few sets of tennis during the day.
Why? It is because such social and recreational breaks would have been good for my own well-being by decreasing my stress level.
An example is as follows:
I would drive an hour each way two or three times a week to see inpatients. Usually, I’d be there at 7:00 am to make rounds and then head back to see my outpatients starting late morning. I often didn’t take much of a lunch break or give myself enough time to wind down.
3 . I wish that someone had told me to write books much earlier in my life.
Why? It is because I have loved to read and write since I was a young child. I feel that I spent so much time listening to patients that I never wrote, until now, in my own voice.
An example is as follows:
I was the editor of my high school’s newspaper. I won first prize in my senior year in a short story contest. I planned on turning my story into a novel, but I never did. However, I did conduct thousands of comprehensive psychological evaluations throughout my forty-seven years of practice. I strived to write each evaluation as a vignette of each person’s unique psychological makeup. In a sense, my book. ‘Raising Children to Thrive,” reflects my giving a voice to the many lives I have experienced. In this sense, I, too, have become more whole, alive, and happier.
4 . I wish that someone had told me to have a partner in my private practice.
Why? I was a sole practitioner. I did not have anyone to share office expenses or “take call” when I was away.
An example is as follows:
When I was sick, in the hospital or on vacation, I worried about my patients well being and there was a loss of income.
5 . I wish someone had told me that being a psychotherapist and psychologist is a lonely profession.
Why? It is an occupation in which complete confidentiality is required. Unlike many fields, one does not come home to family or friends and share their day with them.
An example is as follows:
I had just come home after a “day at work.” My wife and I went out to a party and sat at a table with four other couples. Everyone seemed to talk about their day and share specific details. I sat and listened. Eventually, someone turned to me and asked, “What type of work do you do “? When I said I am a psychologist, he said, “That is interesting. I guess you really can’t tell us about your day”. It was an especially hard day in which I did not, per usual, share the details with my wife, let alone strangers. That morning, I did grief counseling at a high school for faculty and students. The reason was that a student, the day before, had committed suicide. In the afternoon, I testified in court as an expert witness regarding a teenager charged with murdering his father. I felt very isolated, insulated, different, drained from the day and antisocial. I could just as well have worked for the CIA.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My father always told me, “Be yourself”. I always took my father’s quote to heart and it has always served me well. It is so relevant to my personal and professional life because I have tried to live my life as a whole, congruent person. Rogers considers congruence the most important of three therapist attributes. Congruence implies that the therapist is genuine, open, and integrated within the therapeutic relationship. The therapist doesn’t present a façade; their internal and external experiences are one and the same. In short, the therapist is authentic. Such authenticity functions as a model of a human being struggling toward greater realness.
This has allowed my patients to trust me as well as friends and family. It has allowed total strangers to trust me and feel a sense of safety. By striving to always be honest to myself and share my feelings and be genuine with others, I was also a good fit for Carl Rogers’ Person-Centered Therapy
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Yes, definitely,I would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General. He is doing so much to help parents and children. Dr. Murthy has declared a crisis in youth mental health and is addressing issues of lack of children’s human connections, loneliness and addiction to social media platforms.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Readers can follow my work on my author website ronaldruff.com.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Author Dr. Ronald Ruff Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.