About Pat

Dr. Patricia G. Palmer is a clinical psychologist living on Maui. She has authored a number of books, given workshops, taught graduate courses and been a frequent lecturer at the University of Denver's Graduate School of Psychology.

Dr. Palmer was in private practice and owned the Assertiveness Training Institute of Denver. She holds a Doctorate in Humanistic Psychology from the University of Northern Colorado. As part of her doctoral work, she wrote her dissertation for publication and was fortunate to have it published as two books for children, Liking Myself and The Mouse, the Monster and Me, by Impact Publishers, which specializes in books about assertiveness and psychology.

Pat left nursing school to enroll at Skidmore College. After she graduated with an English degree in 1953, she worked at Time Magazine and then at Smith College as an Associate Director, helping young women with vocational placement. Marriage and two beautiful daughters preceded her return to graduate school.

As a therapist, Dr. Palmer has always taken pleasure in teaching people to like themselves, stand up for themselves, and to be assertive with a smile and a kind manner. She wrote Teen Esteem with Melissa Froehner to teach these and other skills to teens. In memory of her grandmother, who believed Pat could be anyone she wanted to be, she wrote I Wish I Could Hold Your Hand to help young people deal with losing a dear loved one.

Pat's children's books all became popular in Japan throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Together with her adult books, Making Dreams Come True, A Primer on Love, Be a Happy Person and Anger Can Be Good for You, her books have sold more than 350,000 copies worldwide.

She is currently on the advisory board of Child Friendly Initiative, which helps parents build child-friendly communities.