HARRIET SCHULTZ
03/22/1938 - 12/10/2022
Dr. Harriet Taran Schultz, 84, passed away on December 10, 2022 at her home in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Schultz was predeceased by her beloved husband of 53 years, Dr. Stanley George Schultz, her parents Albert Taran and Sylvia Silverman, and other friends and family dear to her. She is survived by her devoted sons, Jeffrey (Carol), Kenneth (Heather), grandchildren Aaron, Colin, Kelly, Julian and Keira Schultz, all of Palo Alto, brother Richard Taran of Nashville, and brother-inlaw, Jonas Schultz (Viviane) of Newport Beach.
Harriet was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 22, 1938. She graduated in 1955 from Mamaroneck High School, before attending Barnard College, where she received a degree in psychology in 1959. She then received her Master’s Degree in education from Harvard in 1960. Harriet met Stanley in Cambridge and they were married in December 1960 in New Rochelle, New York.
Her husband’s military service and career in academic medicine precipitated moves to San Antonio, Boston, and Pittsburgh. When sons Jeff and Ken were in elementary school, Harriet was accepted into the University of Pittsburgh Clinical Psychology PhD Program.
In 1979, the family moved to Houston where her husband first served as Chair of the Physiology Department and later as Dean of the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. After completing her PhD in 1982, Harriet worked as a clinical psychologist at a multidisciplinary medical practice, and then later in private practice, focused on anxiety and depression, including teen’s mental health, work in suicide and crises prevention, and nursing home resident’s mental well-being.
She was involved in many professional activities, including the Houston Psychological Association, where she served as President from 2001-2002, and the American Psychological Association (APA), where she served as committee chair for the Division of Media Psychology. A particular interest of hers was how fictional mental health professionals are portrayed in television and film. She was recognized by the APA for a chapter she wrote summarizing her work in an APA book called Featuring Females: Feminist Analysis of Media. Her writing focused on the difference between how psychologists versus psychiatrists are portrayed, as well as gender distinctions between male and female therapists.
In Houston, Harriet was active at Temple Beth Israel, and in 1992 she celebrated an adult Bat Mitzvah in the presence of family and friends.
She was also an active member of the UT Medical School faculty wives and women faculty group and championed many special initiatives that were meaningful to the school and community.
Overall, she described her role as Grandma as her most treasured, and relocated to Palo Alto in 2014 to be closer to her grandchildren. It was a great blessing for her and her family to have her close by to celebrate holidays, birthdays, and other occasions for the last many years of her life. She will be missed by all.
A private family celebration of life will be held.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that gifts be made to the Drs. Stanley G. and Harriet T. Schultz Student Travel Award in Global Health; UTHealth Houston, PO Box 20268, Houston, TX 77025-9998 or at giving.uth.edu/memorial (listed as the Harriet T Schultz Memorial Fund).