Appendix C

Remembering Dr. Jean Linse Dixon Pettifor (1922–2015)

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

This book is dedicated, with admiration and much gratitude, to the memory of Dr. Jean Pettifor, who had an exceptional impact on psychological ethics in Canada and around the world. Jean inspired the thinking of many about ethics, psychology, and the importance of striving for a better world. Following Emerson’s advice, she forged many new trails and had the graciousness and wisdom to invite many students and colleagues to join her in forging these trails. Her legacy is something for which we always will be grateful.

Jean’s Story

Family Beginnings

Jean’s life story started on 14 October 1922 in Scott, Saskatchewan, where she was born to Sophia Hansine and Charles Herbert Dixon. She was the oldest of four children. Her father was a successful farmer and her mother, who had emigrated from Denmark to Kerrobert, Saskatchewan in 1911, was a schoolteacher who became an active and strong advocate for causes impacting women and farmers. Sophia was a progressive thinker, a prolific writer, a political activist, an associate of the Famous Five,¹and a friend of Agnes Macphail.²In 1979, Sophia’s work earned her the Governor-General’s Persons Award for her contributions to supporting women living in rural areas and to the farmers’ cooperative movement. Biographies of Sophia have been written, and her ideas have been the source of inspiration to many people. This includes Elaine Orvedahl Hemm, who, with the direct support of Sophia, wrote her master’s thesis on “The Ideas of Sophia Dixon” (1987). Growing up and seeing her mother deeply involved in social justice issues influenced Jean’s way of understanding the world.

The Importance of Education

Not attending university was not an option for Jean or her siblings. Her mother, who worked as a domestic while learning English after immigrating to Canada and later trained as a teacher, understood the value of education. In 1946, when two of her children were finishing their bachelor’s degrees while the other two were finishing their master’s degrees, Sophia enrolled in university to work towards her own bachelor’s degree.

An expectation of higher education was not a problem for Jean. She loved learning. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (with Distinction) in English and history from the University of Saskatchewan in 1944 and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta in 1946. Throughout her studies, Jean also worked. Between 1942 and 1946, she taught high-school students in rural areas of Alberta (e.g., Buffalo, which is now considered a ghost town). Eventually, she added the role of assistant principal to her duties. She then attended the University of Alberta, where she graduated in 1948 with two master’s degrees—one in English and another in educational psychology. That same year, she began working as a psychologist at the Alberta Guidance Clinic (in Edmonton until 1961 and then in Calgary), where she travelled from school to school conducting psychoeducational assessments of children.

Several years later, wanting to advance her studies further, Jean decided to pursue a doctoral degree. To do this, she needed to request financial support and an educational leave from the Alberta government (which ran the Child Guidance Clinics). At the time, the rules for women wishing to engage in advanced education were different than today. In Jean’s own words:

I found out later that I was given a government bursary because I was considered too old to marry and therefore could be depended on to provide return of service for the rest of my working life. Contrary to expectations, I did marry and had two children, which was considered the ultimate betrayal. I had to fight to keep my job in order to give another 28 years of service, and I struggled to get my pension reinstated because at that time married women could not pay into the pension fund unless they had a medical certificate to prove that their husbands were too disabled to support them. There were conflicting views on the nature of professional training as well as on the proper and natural role for women (Pettifor, 2004, p. 12).

In 1964, Jean graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit, where she earned her doctoral degree in psychology with a minor in education. By that time, she had married Richard Pettifor in 1961 at the age of 39, had given birth to her son Eric³in 1962, and was within a month or two of delivering her daughter Betty when she defended her dissertation in 1964.

Love of Teaching

Jean was a teacher at heart. She began teaching at the University of Calgary in 1967. She also taught as an adjunct professor at the Universities of Athabasca, Gonzaga, Lethbridge, and Saskatchewan. Her early courses were quite traditional—for instance, clinical psychology, personality, educational psychology, and community psychology. However, beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, her teaching became almost exclusively graduate-level courses in ethics and professional issues. Students were intrigued both by her personality and her approach to her courses on these topics. Jean’s main message throughout her life was that ethical decisions and behaviours should be based primarily not on “rules” but on a deep respect and caring for all human beings. Rather than emphasizing the “rules” of the profession, she taught students to understand their and others’ values, to respond to and think through the many stories and vignettes she used in her teaching, to explore what it means to be ethical, and to reflect on what ethics means to establishing a more just and peaceful world.

Reluctantly, Jean stopped being an adjunct professor at the University of Calgary in 2012, at the age of 90. This did not stop her, as she had found many other opportunities to share her knowledge and wisdom, and this continued after 2012 and into her 90s. Over her lifetime, Jean provided supervision to 37 graduate students (e.g., independent studies, theses, dissertations, and comprehensive examinations), authored over 249 peer-reviewed articles, many in collaboration with colleagues, was an investigator in 19 research projects, delivered over 500 presentations at national and international conferences, and provided consultation to anyone who asked.

Dedication to the Discipline and Profession of Psychology

In addition to her teaching and writing, and many local, national, and international presentations, Jean was highly active as a psychologist, both through her employment and her involvement with organized psychology. Further to her work at the Child Guidance clinics in Edmonton and Calgary, she was employed by the Alberta Mental Health Services as a director/consultant of Children’s Services and later as a regional director. Between 1982 and 1989, Jean worked with the Alberta Social Services and Community Health in Calgary in a supervisory role. Throughout these years, Jean influenced countless lives. She had so much to offer, and she did.

In 1958, Jean became a member of the Psychologists Association of Alberta where she held various roles, including secretary treasurer, editor and president. A member of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) since 1952, she was active in the CPA’s Applied Division in the 1970s. Over the years, she also held roles on the executive of several CPA sections and chaired or co-chaired several CPA standing committees. With her special overriding interest in ethics, she was a key member of the CPA Committee on Ethics from 1980 until the time of her passing in 2015, serving as its co-chair from 1989 to 1993. In the early 1980s, Jean played an integral mentorship role with the Committee, led by Dr. Carole Sinclair (Chapter 16), and participated in the development of the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists.⁴Once the Canadian Code was approved, she co-authored the Companion Manual to the Code with Carole, beginning with the second edition (1992). She joined the CPA Board of Directors and became its president in 1994. In addition, she spearheaded several sets of ethical guidelines for psychologists, including guidelines for counselling and therapy with women, non-discriminatory practice, and supervision. She presented at the CPA Convention between 1972 and 2015—never missed a year. In 2003, in recognition of her many contributions to CPA and to the field of psychology, Jean was awarded the CPA Gold Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Canadian Psychology.

Further to her involvement at the local and national levels, Jean also forged new trails at the international level. The Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists, from its first edition in 1986, captured the imagination of several countries and there was interest in hearing more about it. Invitations began to appear to present information about the Canadian Code at international congresses. Jean jumped at the opportunity. She strongly believed in the importance and power of ethical dialogue in meeting the global psychology community’s responsibility to do everything it can to ensure ethical behaviour by its members and to play its part in helping the world become a better and more peaceful place. So, beginning in 1995, Jean and Carole began attending at least one international congress every year, meeting and forging relationships with psychologists from around the world who had an interest in ethics. They worked hard over the following two decades, along with other international leaders in psychological ethics, to ensure that each international congress included multiple symposia and/or workshops on ethics, with presenters from different countries and cultures. Jean’s inveterate organizing ability was a key component in the success of these efforts.

One important and major international event in which Jean was involved was the development of the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psychologists. She provided ongoing support and advice to Dr. Janel Gauthier (Chapter 21), who chaired the working group responsible for the development of the Declaration. In 2013, in recognition of her two decades of international contributions, Jean received the Wilhelm Wundt-William James Award for her exceptional contributions to transatlantic psychology. Although Jean was very appreciative of all the awards she received in her lifetime, including the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal in October 2002, she was particularly proud of this one. Her Wilhelm Wundt-William James Award was the only one she hung on her living room wall, rather than in her office.

Important to note is the fact that being involved internationally did not interfere with Jean’s local contributions. Between 1997 and 2010, she held several roles in the College of Alberta Psychologists, including president, member-at-large, and chair of various committees. Her energy level defied all expectations.

Jean’s Legacy

Jean died peacefully in Calgary on Sunday, 8 November 2015. She often had said she wanted to live forever as there was still so much work to do. In many ways, she met this goal, in so far as she left a wonderful legacy that will continue to inspire and influence our thinking about ethics and psychology for a long time to come.

Jean taught that, with passion, hard work, persistence, kindness, humility, grace, and wisdom, there is nothing worth doing that cannot be accomplished. She also taught that when people come together to work on a shared goal, peace, justice, freedom, and humanity can prevail. Jean is as much an integral part of this book as the authors who contributed to it. In her honour, all proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the scholarship she created, the Dr. Jean and Dick Pettifor Scholarship Fund. It was her wish that this fund be established to support graduate students conducting research in the area of ethics, especially research with a focus on diversity. More importantly, Jean wished for every psychologist to continue to engage actively in ethical thinking and dialogue. Through her work, her teaching, her support of so many during her lifetime, and the Dr. Jean and Dick Pettifor Scholarship Fund, Jean continues to live on.

notes

1. 1 The Famous Five included Judge Emily Murphy, Henrietta Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, and Irene Parlby. All from Alberta, they were highly active in promoting women’s rights. In 1928, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that women were not “persons”; therefore, they were not eligible for appointment to the Senate. The Famous Five challenged this ruling and, in 1929, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council reversed the Court’s decision, The Persons Case, as it was called, enabled women to be members of the Senate.

2. 2 Agnes Macphail was the first female member of parliament in Canada.

3. 3 Eric’s legal name is now Deimon Slagg.

4. 4 Information about the development process of the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists is provided in chapter 16 of this volume.

References

Hamm, E. O. (1987). The ideas of Sophia Dixon. [Unpublished maser’s thesis]. University of Saskatchewan. https://harvest.usask.ca/bitstream/handle/10388/5911/Hamm_Elaine_Orvedahl_1987_sec.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Pettifor, J. L. (2004). Personal reflections on 60 years of psychology: Many roads to truth. Canadian Psychology, 45(1), 11–15. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/h0086967