IEL Co-Founder and U.U. Emeritus Professor Dies at 76
IEL Co-Founder and U.U. Emeritus Professor Dies at 76
Company announcement: Peter Weinreich, Director and Co-Founder of Identity Exploration Limited (IEL) and Emeritus Professor at the School of Psychology University of Ulster, has died. He was 76.
Peter passed away on the 8th April 2016 from a rare and aggressive form of skin cancer. He had been battling Merkel Cell Carcinoma for just over a year. In recent months his health had deteriorated, the cancer having spread through the lymph system causing swelling in his abdomen and putting pressure on one of his kidneys; also he suffered from deep vein thrombosis, oedema and had a tumour on his leg, very much restricting his mobility.
Despite these debilitating illnesses, he managed his life with great aplomb and strength of character supported in Belfast by his family, colleagues, friends and his neighbours at home in College Park Avenue. He entered a Cheltenham Care Home to be close to his beloved family when he needed palliative care.
He is survived by his beloved daughter Jo, her husband Tony Brown, his greatly adored grandchildren Jed and Sasha Brown and by his colleague and dear friend Mehroo Northover.
A company spokesman said "Peter was a creative original thinker, characterised by dedication to the global promotion of his Identity Structure Analysis (ISA). He was pleased when this 'grand project' was advanced by publication of a textbook Analysing Identity. It describes and illustrates his practical multi-faceted approach to explaining the notion of identity and its application to real world issues in ethnic and race relations and in cross-cultural, societal and clinical contexts. A substantial literature already exists on academic research projects based on ISA.
He had great hopes that, as a business, IEL would demonstrate how practical and useful ISA can be in a wide range of outlets. This hope began to be realised when a series of exploratory instruments were built using ipseus, the company’s ‘framework’ software, to explain sectarianism in situ, screen for fundamentalist extremism among the young and vulnerable and appraise candidates and students for professional values and beliefs. IEL is pledged to advance his ‘grand project’.
Peter was a quietly imposing, thoughtful, essentially good natured person who suffered for many years from occasional bouts of depression and anxiety. As a humanist he cared deeply about the psychological and physical wellbeing of people across the globe whose relationships with self and others were at the heart of his work.
He was born in Britain and it is ‘his country’. But he lived his early years in extreme poverty as the offspring of German ‘peasant stock’ fleeing Nazi Germany: he has experienced the struggle to get to the ‘mainstream’ in society; to be accepted while retaining some cultural integrity with his roots. His awareness of identity development and its tribulations began very early.
He had an acute understanding of people's sense of who they were and how they got to be that way. He was also a huge inspiration to many.
However, in his eyes, his greatest achievement in life, in fact, his pride and absolute joy, were his daughter and the two beautiful grandchildren whom he has left behind.”