Trotter, Sharland 1943(?)–1997

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TROTTER, Sharland 1943(?)–1997

PERSONAL: Born c. 1943, in Robstown, TX; died of cancer November 25, 1997, in Brookline, MA; married Robert Kuttner (a journalist), 1971; children: Gabriel, Jessica. Education: Attended Goucher College; Harvard University, Ed.D., 1987.

CAREER: Clinical psychologist and writer. Psychologist in private practice, Boston, MA; research fellow at Radcliffe College, Cambridge, MA; staff member at Fresh Pond Day Treatment Center, Cambridge, and Westwood Lodge (psychiatric hospital), Westwood, MA. Former editor-in-chief of American Psychological Association's Monitor on Psychology.

Worked as an editor in publishing houses in New York, NY; a member of "Nader's Raiders" in Washington, DC, c. 1971; and a staff member at the Massachusetts Advocacy Center, Boston, MA, c. 1979.

WRITINGS:

(With Franklin D. Chu) The Madness Establishment: Ralph Nader's Study Group Report on the National Institute of Mental Health, Grossman Publishers (New York, NY), 1974.

(Editor, with Evelyn B. Thoman) Social Responsiveness of Infants: A Round Table, The Company (New Brunswick, NJ), 1978.

(With Robert Kuttner) Family Re-Union: Reconnecting Parents and Children in Adulthood, Free Press (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Sharland Trotter was a clinical psychologist who cowrote the book Family Re-Union: Reconnecting Parents and Children in Adulthood with her journalist husband, Robert Kuttner. The book focuses on relationships between adults and their parents and how they can form stronger bonds of friendship. The authors look at the relationship between parents and children beginning with the time children first leave home, usually to go to college, and on through the years until the time of the parents' impending death. In fact, the authors came up with the idea for the book when their own son was heading off to college. The book is made more poignant by the fact that Trotter discovered she had cancer when she and her husband began working on the book. As a result, the book includes a look at how Trotter and her family deal with her illness, which eventually led to her death in 1997 prior to the book's publication. The authors also include real-life examples from various families and from literature, as well as examples from their own lives to discuss their theme and to offer suggestions on forming essentially a new parent-child relationship as the child becomes an adult. In a review in Adolescence, Roslyn Heights commented that the book "offers hope that, no matter what our personal circumstances, it is never too late to create loving, respectful family ties." Pam Matthews, writing in the Library Journal, felt that "Trotter's last days tend to eclipse the titular theme." A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book "a thoughtful rumination on the nature and intricacies of adult child and parent relationships."