PROFILE:
Professor Harry Prosen, M.D., M.Sc
Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Medical College
of Wisconsin.
Professor Prosen is a professor of psychiatry who has worked in the field for over 40 years, including chairing two departments of psychiatry and serving as president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association. Professor Prosen has also recently been made a member of a select group of 500 Distinguished Life Fellows of the American Psychiatric Association. He is also the psychiatric consultant to the Bonobo Species Preservation Society, and is assisting those working with one of the largest collections of captive bonobo primates in the world at the Milwaukee County Zoo.
He has obtained specialist standing in psychiatry in three countries—Canada, the United States and England. Around the time of his presidency of the Canadian Psychiatric Association he also chaired the Specialty Committee in Psychiatry of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada for six years.
As former Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin until late 2003, Professor Prosen has been responsible for continuing in a major way the development of two departments of psychiatry and was listed in the 2005–2006 America’s Registry of Outstanding Professionals.
He has been continuously involved in the teaching of psychiatry and in clinical work with patients, with special emphasis on inter-generational issues in families, focusing particularly on empathy and empathic deficits. Much of this work originated in studying variations of the life-stages of humans, then developing an inter-generational approach to psychiatric treatment. Some of his early publications focused on non-verbal communication and also variations in facial features under different emotional circumstances.
Professor Prosen’s interest in empathy prepared him for his work with primates, in particular bonobos who are thought to be the most empathic of all primates. It has allowed him to participate in the work of a group of primate experts studying bonobo culture and development and has also led to him receiving numerous consultations from the United States and other parts of the world about psychological and other problems in primates, especially bonobos, and other species. Recently, the rehabilitation of a very disturbed young bonobo named Brian by Professor Prosen and his colleagues generated substantial publicity.
He has written over 70 books, monographs and articles, reviewed over 30 books and delivered over 60 presentations at various conferences. He is currently a peer-reviewer for the American Journal of Psychotherapy.
Professor Prosen obtained his M.D. in 1955, his M.Sc. in 1957, and his Diploma in Psychiatry in 1959 — all from Canada’s University of Manitoba.