Ilene Schroeder oral history interview, September 5, 2014

Item — othertype: Oral History

Identifier: SchroederI_20140905

Staff Only

Ilene Schroeder oral history interview

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Scope and Contents

Interviewed by Franklin Abbott: In this interview, Ilene Schroeder begins by talking about her family and briefly talks about her childhood. She describes moving to Georgia from Brooklyn and feeling like an outsider, then becoming more comfortable with herself while at the University of Georgia. She talks about the feminist and anti-war activism she engaged in as a college student. Schroeder talks about living in various parts of Georgia in a communal situation with some friends, including a stint in Clayton, Ga., where she and her housemates were threatened with violence. She describes feeling aimless after college, then gaining a sense of purpose when she began working as a counselor at the Community Crisis Center in Atlanta, which was founded by some of her friends, and after giving birth to her son Chad. Schroeder talks about her experiences, both positive and negative, at Karuna Counseling, and she and Franklin Abbott discuss the current state of the profession of psychotherapy. She also talks about her views on the current state of social and political life in the United States. She talks about her love of baseball, her parents' deaths, and her feelings about her own life and how they have changed as she has aged.

Dates

Creation: September 5, 2014

Creator

Schroeder, Ilene Anita, 1947- (Interviewee, Person)

Restrictions on Access

Oral history available for research.

Biographical Note

Ilene Schroeder was born in 1947 and grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. Both sides of her family immigrated to New York from Eastern Europe. She moved to Georgia with her family after high school and enrolled at the University of Georgia. At UGA, she participated in anti-war activism and became interested in women's issues. After college, Schroeder spent some time working odd jobs and living with a group of friends in various parts of Georgia, then in 1970 she started working at the Community Crisis Center in Atlanta, where she eventually became director of counseling. Schroeder joined Karuna Counseling in 1974, the year it opened. She began working toward a PhD at Georgia State University in 1980 and left Karuna in 1981. She has practiced privately as a therapist since then.