http://www.jpost.com/Health/Article.aspx?id=279260

More Americans ­ but few Jews ­ go to their clergymen for counselling about their emotional problems than to psychologists.

Many of the Jews¹ ancestors in Eastern Europe went to their rebbes not only to consult regarding religious practice and belief but also as a kind of therapist. Now a Jewish clinical, social and developmental psychologist in Chicago is using stories ­ from Noah to Job ­ from the Book of Books to provide help to patients of all backgrounds, whether they are believers or atheists.

Prof. Kalman Kaplan of the departments of psychiatry and medical education at the University of Illinois is one of the advocates of the field of biblical psychology and believes the technique can provide powerful therapy to many people seeking help for their problems: An ordinary person¹s woes, for example, look small compared to the afflictions of Job.

Kaplan is visiting Israel as a fellow of the Fulbright program, the US government¹s most prestigious and widely-known academic exchange programs, whose local participation has been managed by the USIsrael Educational Foundation since 1956.

In the years since its establishment, more than 1,200 Americans and 1,600 Israelis have participated in a variety of Fulbright student and academic staff exchanges. The late US senator William Fulbright initiated the global Fulbright program in 1946 to strengthen the foundations of peace by promoting understanding between the American people and the peoples of the participating nations around the world.

In a interview this month with The Jerusalem Post, Kaplan said he had been to Israel many times before and even lived here for 18 months between 2005 and 2007, working at Tel Aviv University¹s psychology department. He is former editor of the Journal of Psychology and Judaism, a fellow of the American Psychological Association and corecipient of the Alexander Gralnick Award for outstanding original research on suicide and schizophrenia.

He has also authored or co-authored a number of books, including The Family: Biblical and Psychological Foundations;A Psychology of Hope: A Biblical Response to Tragedy and Suicide; Living with Schizophrenia;Biblical Stories for Psychotherapy and Counseling: A Sourcebook and The Fruit of Her Hands: Biblical Woman and Her Sense of Purpose.

Kaplan also teaches at Chicago¹s Spertus Institute, which was founded in 1924 as his native city¹s College of Jewish Studies, which today offers an innovative, nondenominational array of specialized and public programming, grounded in Jewish thought inspired by Jewish values.