Williams, Redford 1940-

views updated

Williams, Redford 1940-
(Redford B. Williams, Jr., Redford Brown Williams, Jr.)

PERSONAL:

Born December 14, 1940, in Raleigh, NC; son of Redford Brown, Sr., and Annie Virginia (Betts) Williams; married Virginia Carter Parrott (a writer, workshop organizer, and cultural historian); children: Jennifer Betts, Lloyd Carter. Education: Harvard University, A.B., 1963; Yale University, M.D., 1967. Religion: Unitarian Universalist. Hobbies and other interests: Tennis.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Williams LifeSkills, Inc., 2020 W. Main St., Ste. 100, Durham, NC 27705.E-mail—redfordw@duke.edu.

CAREER:

Yale-New Haven Medical Center, New Haven, CT, intern, then resident, 1967-70; U.S. Public Health Service, Bethesda, MD, senior surgeon, 1970-72; Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, assistant professor, 1972-77, professor of psychiatry, 1977—, director of Behavioral Medicine Research Center, 1985—, professor of psychology, 1990—. Professor of psychology at Duke University graduate school and adjunct professor of epidemiology at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, School of Public Health. North Carolina Heart Association, Chapel Hill, director, 1980-83. Cofounder (with wife, Virginia Williams) and chairman of Williams LifeSkills, Inc., Durham, NC, 1997—.

MEMBER:

Society of Behavioral Medicine, Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, American Psychosomatic Society, International Society of Behavioral Medicine (president-elect, 2004-06; president, 2006-08).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Scientist award, National Institute of Mental Health, 1974; National Institutes of Health grant, 1976; Upjohn Distinguished Scientist Award, Society of Behavioral Medicine, 1992.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(Editor, with W. Doyle Gentry) Psychological Aspects of Myocardial Infarction and Coronary Care,Mosby (St. Louis, MO), 1975, 2nd edition, 1979.

(Editor, with W. Doyle Gentry) Behavioral Approaches to Medical Treatment, Ballinger Publishing (Cambridge, MA), 1977.

(With Richard S. Surwit and David Shapiro)Behavioral Approaches to Cardiovascular Disease, Academic Press (New York, NY), 1982.

(Editor) Neuroendocrine Control and Behavior,Academic Press (Orlando, FL), 1985.

The Trusting Heart: Great News about Type A Behavior, Times Books (New York, NY), 1989.

(With wife, Virginia Williams) Anger Kills: 17 Strategies for Controlling the Hostility That Can Harm Your Health, Times Books (New York, NY), 1993.

(With Virginia Williams) LifeSkills: 8 Simple Ways to Build Stronger Relationships, Communicate More Clearly and Improve Your Health, Random House/Times Books (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Virginia Williams) The Type E Personality: 10 Steps to Emotional Excellence in Love, Work and Life, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Virginia Williams) In Control: No More Snapping at Your Family, Sulking at Work, Steaming in the Grocery Line, Seething at Meetings, Stuffing Your Frustration, Rodale (Emmaus, PA), 2006.

Contributor of articles to journals. Editorial adviser,Prevention magazine.

SIDELIGHTS:

Behavioral sciences professor Redford Williams has written extensively about the relationship between psychological and physical health, and he has also put his ideas to work in his firm Williams LifeSkills, Inc., which provides workshops and consultation on emotional health issues, such as relationships, communication, and anger management. He became particularly interested in the latter while researching the relationship between type A traits, such as ambition and a tendency to drive oneself hard, and heart disease. He eventually concluded, in his book The Trusting Heart: Great News about Type A Behavior, that type A characteristics do not increase the risk of heart disease unless anger is present as well.

Since then, he has written numerous works focusing on anger management, including Anger Kills: 17 Strategies for Controlling the Hostility That Can Harm Your Health, the first of several books he has written with his wife, Virginia Williams. The work offers suggestions on how to rid oneself of anger or to handle it in a productive way, perhaps as a motivator for life changes. The authors ask readers a question they ask in LifeSkills workshops—how they would change their behavior if they knew their life would end soon. "Asking the question, on one level, is a trick," Redford Williams told Prevention interviewer Steve Schwade, "but it's an incredibly powerful trick. It helps people to resort their priorities, to realize what they truly value."

Schwade wrote of the Williamses and this book: "Their message is simple and powerful: By being angry with others, you're killing yourself." Some other commentators also had praise for that message. A Publishers Weekly critic called the book "instructive" and added that it manages "a deft balance of research and intuitive perceptions."

The Williamses have continued to offer recommendations on dealing with negative feelings—and building positive ones—in numerous other works. LifeSkills: 8 Simple Ways to Build Stronger Relationships, Communicate More Clearly and Improve Your Healthdetails how poor emotional health can produce physical illness and offers readers means to change their emotions. Several reviewers thought the book's suggestions workable; a contributor to Total Healthdescribed them as "clear, realistic, hands-on strategies." Elizabeth Caulfield Felt, writing in Library Journal,said the volume provides "lots of excellent advice" and is set apart from many other self-help books by the high quality of its research.

With In Control: No More Snapping at Your Family, Sulking at Work, Steaming in the Grocery Line, Seething at Meetings, Stuffing Your Frustration, the Williamses draw on both professional training and personal struggles to develop an eight-week program to channel anger, whether expressed or suppressed, into more productive emotions, to learn both empathy and assertiveness, and to improve relationships. Critics found the book accessible and practical. In Library Journal,Dale Farris noted that it offers an "easy-to-follow program" and "a handy self-assessment tool." A Publishers Weekly contributor summed up the volume as "a comprehensive guide to emotional management," while Mary Ann Smyth, reviewing for the Web siteBookLoons, added that the Williamses' program will make readers' lives "more pleasant, more rewarding, and definitely more interesting."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Health, January/February, 1990, David Sobel, review of The Trusting Heart: Great News about Type A Behavior, p. 104.

Library Journal, February 15, 1998, Elizabeth Caulfield Felt, review of LifeSkills: 8 Simple Ways to Build Stronger Relationships, Communicate More Clearly and Improve Your Health, p. 162; January, 2004, Douglas C. Lord, review of The Type E Personality: 10 Steps to Emotional Excellence in Love, Work and Life, p. 139; February 15, 2006, Dale Farris, review of In Control: No More Snapping at Your Family, Sulking at Work, Steaming in the Grocery Line, Seething at Meetings, Stuffing Your Frustration, p. 138.

Prevention, February, 1995, Steve Schwade, "Heart without Anger," p. 58.

Publishers Weekly, January 18, 1993, review of Anger Kills, p. 458; November 17, 2003, review of The Type E Personality, p. 56; January 30, 2006, review of In Control, p. 54.

Total Health, April/May, 1998, review of LifeSkills,p. 13.

Vibrant Life, July-August, 1995, Gary Bousman, "Anger: It Can Be Like Slow-Acting Poison, Robbing You of Mental and Physical Health," p. 18.