(Historic) Barbara Wasson
Barbara Wasson Butler, known as Barbara Wasson, (b. 1927 d. October 9, 1998), received her bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of California - Berkeley in 1948 and her master's in psychology from Washington University, St. Louis, in 1962.
Most of her professional career was spent doing clinical work, mainly in Missouri and Oregon. She also maintained a private practice as a clinical member of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. However, in her spare time she had a passion few would guess judging by career path: she was an avid pursuer of bigfoot.
What set Barbara Wasson apart from other bigfoot researchers was her insight and thoughts on bigfoot researchers as well as the bigfoot species itself. She was known for her pointed criticism of some fellow members of the bigfoot community, whose disagreements prevented, in Wasson's judgment, the sort of teamwork essential to productive investigative efforts. Because of her background and willingness to express her observations freely, her books serve as two of the few examples of efforts to analyze the field of cryptozoology from a psychological perspective.
Published Works
- Sasquatch Apparitions: A critique on the Pacific Northwest hominoid (ISBN 0961410507) 1979
- Tracking the Sasquatch: The Elusive Pacific Northwest Hominoid (ISBN 0961410523) 1994