Deborah A. Lott studied English Literature and Film at UCLA, where she also received a less formal education in 2nd wave Feminism and political activism. After working in publishing in Boston, MA, she continued her editing career with Peace Press, a collectively organized printer/publisher dedicated to advancing the causes of social justice, Feminism, and environmentalism. Her projects there encompassed learning about the Zen of the piano, eating wild herbs alongside the Los Angeles River, howling with the wolves at Deena Metzger’s, and spending a day with Black Panther pioneer Huey Newton.  She went on to serve as a contributing editor to Psychiatric Times, and as Senior Consulting Writer/Editor for the UCLA/Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

As a reporter for Psychiatric Times, Lott became fascinated by the dynamics in the psychotherapy room and the privileged language of psychotherapy practice. Lott interviewed several hundred therapy clients and noted therapists about transference and boundary dilemmas in psychotherapy. Her years of research led to her first book, In Session: The Bond Between Women and Their Therapists.

Ms. Lott’s second book, Don’t Go Crazy without Me: A Memoir, is currently being shopped by her agent.

As an Antioch instructor, Lott considers her first obligation to be creating a safe classroom community so students can respond to work freely and authentically. She believes that rigor is essential to academic work, but so is passion. She encourages students to ask those “emperor has no clothes” kind of questions, to interrogate all received wisdom, and to take risks in their own writing. She models very close reading of texts (and films) and critical thinking that always considers the social and economic context of the works. She takes various theoretical approaches to a text and views texts through multiple viewpoints, always aware that every perspective has its blind spots. She is thrilled by Antioch’s innovative and learner-focused approach to undergraduate education. She is inspired by students’ diverse backgrounds, wealth of life experience, and commitment to their own development. She likes to group unexpected readings together and see how they speak to one another. For example, in her Representations of Childhood class, she assigns 19th-century writers like Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte, journal articles on child soldiers, and contemporary writers like JoAnn Beard and Bernard Cooper.