Horace Mann - Spring 2017 - 16

HM Alumni Address "The Issues" in Their Work and Lives

Dr. Raymond Levy '66
Advocates for Children by
Empowering Their Fathers

he well-being of children is a
societal priority. It's also a focus
of the work psychologist Dr. Raymond
Levy '66 pursues. However, it's
not children with whom Dr. Levy is
engaged, but, rather, their fathers. Dr.
Levy is founder and executive director
of The Fatherhood Project (TFP, www.thefatherhoodproject.
org) a non-profit program in the Department of Psychiatry at
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) with the mission of
empowering fathers to be knowledgeable, active and emotionally engaged with their children.
With nearly 35 years of clinical experience, as well as
through his research, Dr. Levy understands the lifelong
impact of father engagement with children. He launched The
Fatherhood Project in 2011 after receiving funding to conduct
a study on the role of fatherhood in adult development. TFP's
work has since expanded to include: furthering research on
fatherhood-related issues; developing programs that teach
fathers key relationship skills toward raising healthy children;
educating parents and professionals on the importance of
fathers to children's well-being and; promoting father-friendly
policies at hospitals, schools, pediatric and obstetric practices,
community centers, and prisons. The organization addresses
fathers in today's wide range of family structures, from heterosexual two-parent households once considered "traditional" to
families with a father or father figure present, whether residing
with the children or not, to same sex parent families. TFP works
primarily with fathers in underserved communities. While Dr.
Levy lauds the high rate of successful single mother households
of all demographics, he notes "our work is about fathers."
An Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard
Medical School Dr. Levy is also a teacher and supervisor within
the Department of Psychiatry at MGH, and Senior editor of the
Handbook of Evidence-Based Psychodynamic Psychotherapy:
Bridging the Gap Between Science and Practice (2009) and
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: Evidence-Based Practice and
Practice-Based Evidence (2011). He participated in the White
House Champions of Change Father's Day meeting in 2012 and
2015, and lectures on fatherhood topics worldwide.
The inspiration that fires Dr. Levy's dedication to TFP's work
is rooted in several experiences. One is the insight he's gained
through his private psychotherapy practice working with "a lot
of fathers, a lot of men"-including men navigating issues with
their children, and adults working through the effects of challenging relationships with their own fathers. Other influences
for Dr. Levy's efforts stem from his own life. Candidly, Dr. Levy
reports, "the origins of my interest in this subject go back to my

Horace Mann Magazine Spring 2017

own experience as a son. I had the experience of not
knowing my father very well, and of him not knowing me
at all." Dr. Levy sought to avoid repeating this dynamic in
his own child-rearing years, with his now-adult son and
daughter. "Fatherhood was a central part of my life with
my two children. I was very committed to being their
father, and very involved in their day-to-day lives. When
they grew up and moved out of the house to start their
own lives I thought I could still try to make a contribution as a father, by studying fatherhood and by working with fathers. I live
my life to some degree in the world of ideas. I was introduced
to powerful ideas as well as standards of excellence at Horace
Mann. I apply both in our work with TFP."
Dr. Levy's goal of contributing to society by empowering positive fatherhood speaks to yet another inspiration for launching
and growing TFP. "I believe we will have a hard time changing
some of the at-risk behaviors among children without fathers'
emotional engagement," he said. "This comes directly from my
experience with youth and men, particularly men in prisons I
work with. They point out the absence of fathers in their lives,
and tell me 'my father was the gang around the corner.' Data
connects such situations, in some cases, with early entry into
the criminal justice system, and shows improved outcomes
when "a child's subjective experience is closeness with the
father," said Dr. Levy. "This in no way minimizes the importance
of mothers. But our concern at TFP is with fathers, because
they are increasingly becoming front-line caretakers and need
to develop their fathering skills."
A 2014 study by Dr. Catherine Dulac, Higgins Professor of
Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, set out to
learn if male mice have a capacity to match female parenting
abilities. This study revealed that despite long being considered
aggressive toward their young, a male mouse's tendency to
inflict injury could be turned instead toward nurturing by stimulating a set of neurons that appear to drive parental behavior.
These neurons are shared, exactly, by males and females "The
study proved that male mice have the same neural pathways for
parenting as female mice. I know we're talking about mice here,
but much research on mice is applied to humans," Dr. Levy said.
Regarding humans, he explained, "more females than males are
utilizing those neural circuits." This circuitry can be turned on
or off depending on their frequency of use, he added.
Changing demographics call for changes in fatherhood roles
What caused parenting skills to diminish in fathers compared
to mothers is another area for exploration. Reasons include
centuries of disruptions that separated children from parents-most often male parents-in various cultures through
mass migration, conflict and human trade. More recently, the
advent of industrial revolution-era manufacturing jobs removed
fathers from the home-based parenting process of agrarian
society, and led to the expansion of "outside the home" employment for fathers in nearly all professions.
Today's demographics demand that fathers reclaim their
nurturing abilities. The rise of women in the workforce, attributed to feminism and the economy, are factors. A 2015 Pew

http://www.thefatherhoodproject.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Horace Mann - Spring 2017