About the Author
Wendy Fisher House, Ph.D., is a psychologist with training in both clinical and social psychology. For over forty years she met with individuals, couples and families, first at Community Mental Health and then in her full-time private practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Most of the clients she had the privilege of meeting with were seeking help to deal with problems or changes in their lives. Over the years, she began to notice stories accumulating in her office alerting her to the profound effect which one particular change—parents divorcing after 20 or more years—had on the entire family system, including grown children.
She observed this from the vantage points of parents’ accounts, adult children’s accounts and even from adults recollecting the turmoil their parents’ later life divorces had caused them, now many years ago. Few resources were available for this population then and even now. So, after she retired, she decided to write a book for families experiencing later life divorce as well as for mental health professionals working with them. This is that book and, hopefully, it puts to rest the harmful myth that this increasingly common experience is “no big deal.”
In addition to working with clients dealing with later life divorce and other life challenges, Wendy House conducted court-ordered family evaluations for Child Protective Services, provided clinical supervision for the Visiting Nurses Association and the Assault Crisis Center, and initiated and supervised a readjustment treatment program for Vietnam veterans. She also led groups for adults who experienced parental loss in childhood and co-led groups for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, including groups for therapist survivors.
Dr. House was born in Topeka, Kansas. She graduated from the University of Kansas in 1965 with a double major in psychology and sociology. From there she went to the University of Michigan where she met her future husband and life-long partner, Jim House, a fellow student in the same social psychology doctoral program. They lived in North Carolina for 8 years, teaching at Duke and UNC, before returning to Ann Arbor where they raised their two children. Until they recently moved downtown, they lived in a house on the river with two rescue cats, Daisy and Lily.