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On June 2, just before this issue went to press, Neil Jacobson, noted clinician and researcher on marriage and depression, died suddenly from a heart attack while in Las Vegas to conduct a workshop. He is survived by his wife, Virginia Rutter, and three children: Matthew Hempleman, 18, Emily Jacobson, 13, Jesse Jacobson, 9; his parents Lloyd and Marjorie Jacobson; and his two brothers, Tom (and his partner, Todd Hill) and John. He had just turned 50 years old. Neil was an active researcher and presenter, feisty and creative. Death is always sad, but sadder still when someone with so much to offer dies before his time. This loss echoes all the other losses we have experienced, and reminds us of the preciousness of life, the shortness of time, and the importance of living our dreams. We acknowledge the loss of Neil Jacobson as an important one for his friends and family, and for our professional and personal networks. His work, his goals will remain intertwined with ours, and those of future generations, perpetuating the living intellectual community to which we all belong. In lieu of the usual editorial, what follows are six letters of remembrance from those who worked with and cared for him, remembrances that will make many of us wish we had known him better. He will be missed.
Carol M. Anderson, Ph,D. Editor
Neil was a brash, upstart graduate student who didn't know his place, and wouldn't stay in it. He had read of behavioral marital therapy and decided to test it, even though those who developed it were thousands of miles away. Instead of bowing to seasoned and experienced leaders, he conducted the first controlled studies of behavioral marital therapy and wrote a Psychology Bulletin review of the field as a mere graduate student. As a young Assistant Professor he could easily have rested on his substantial laurels: he and Margolin had written the book on behavioral couple therapy, and his studies provided the best support for it. But no, he turned his brash and critical eye on his own research and that of others in the field. In his ground-breaking work on clinical significance, he showed that the positive results the field was touting weren't all they were cracked...