Richard R. Bootzin, 74, died Dec. 4, 2014.
Born in Milwaukee, Mr. Bootzin graduated from Washington High School in Milwaukee, earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Purdue University. He was a professor of psychology at Northwestern University for 19 years and joined the psychology faculty at the University of Arizona in 1987. His area of interest was sleep and sleep disorders, with particular attention to insomnia. Stimulus control, his non-drug treatment for insomnia, is studied and used worldwide, including at the Veterans Health Administration, as the gold standard for the disorder. As president of the Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System, he also was a leader in the effort to assure that science-based treatments are the norm in clinical psychology. He was honored by the Sleep Research Society as an outstanding teacher and mentor.
Survivors include his wife, Maris “Mitzi”; children, Deborah (Michael) Daniels and Lainey (Todd) Melnick; brother Jerold (Judy) Bootzin; sister, Enid Berkovitz; four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Services were held at Evergreen Mortuary with Cantor Janece Cohen officiating. Interment followed in the Congregation Or Chadash section of Evergreen Cemetery.
