UWG Stories
Larry Schor
“In psychology, there are two necessary components for meaningful learning: understanding of the subject matter and a deeper understanding of one’s self,” Schor said.
Dr. Larry Schor practices what he teaches.
In the classroom, Schor invites his undergraduate and graduate students along a course he, himself, tries to follow: to engage in the struggle of living meaningfully, compassionately and connectedly.
“How can you learn about human development if you don’t learn about yourself?” asked Schor, associate professor and coordinator of therapeutic services in the Department of Psychology at UWG. “In psychology, there are two necessary components for meaningful learning: understanding of the subject matter and a deeper understanding of one’s self.”
Outside the classroom, Schor’s therapeutic work includes volunteering as a Disaster Mental Health Counselor for the American Red Cross. He has worked locally, regionally and nationally responding to disasters that include the World Trade Center attack and Hurricane Katrina.
“Most of the stories told by Katrina evacuees were, in many ways, public knowledge. People who had lost their homes. People who had lost their pets. People who had lost their loved ones. People who spent days on bridges or in hospitals waiting for help. People who had witnessed unspeakable horror,” Schor recalled.
“I had already known these things happened, but there is something vastly different about looking into the eyes of the people as they describe where they have been, what they have seen, and their nearly complete uncertainty about where they are heading. Story after story after story.
“Because their needs had been ignored for so long by so many, most of these people seemed more appreciative than we deserved for what we had to offer. We gave them debit cards, wheelchairs, hotel vouchers, and enrolled their kids in school, but there was little we could do to help them face what lies ahead. It was as if many turned a desperate ear to the familiar song, When The Saints Go Marching In. The Saints have not gone marching in,” he reflected.
After working with Katrina victims in two very different situations, once immediately following the disaster as they arrived in a Lawrenceville relief center and again, more recently, in FEMA trailer communities in Baton Rouge, Schor summarized his efforts.
“My work mostly involved accompanying people, for a brief moment, on their long journey from home toward a future obscured by thick clouds of suffering and uncertainty.”
Schor earned a master’s degree in psychology from West Georgia and a doctorate from Auburn University where his dissertation focused on the theoretical understanding of how perception becomes meaningful.
Schor credits West Georgia with giving him a sense of calling and now, he endeavors to do the same for his students. Since 2002, Schor has served as the program chair and faculty advisor for the Student Psychology Annual Research Conference (SPARC), one of the largest student psychology research conferences in the southeast.
“I found the psychology department at West Georgia to be holistic in the broadest sense of the word. I came to understand a psychology far beyond that defined by conventional programs and mainstream organizations; a psychology implicitly related to spirituality, art, mythology, philosophy, authenticity, and most importantly, human experience.
“I was encouraged to become engaged fully in the process of discovery; both intellectually and personally. This influence has defined how I work, how I teach, how I learn, how I research, how I write… how I live.”
