Who Am I?

Celebrating her 90th birthday, Esther Kessler has written two engrossing books in one: She covers her intriguing personal life story and her emotional and spiritual growth as she shares the lessons she learned about values clarification and humanistic psychology from the top experts in the field.

Raised by an immigrant mother who fled Russian pogroms and spent years of her childhood in Siberia, Esther grew up in booming Miami Beach in the 1930s, graduated from Miami Beach High in 1949, and attended the University of Florida the year it turned co-ed. She married a prominent attorney, hotelier and community leader; raised a beautiful family; spent years as a leader in her synagogue, south Miami's Temple Beth Am; traveled the world; and emerged as an independent social worker and life-long learner just as women stepped forward in professional life.

While raising her family, Esther earned her college degrees from FIU in her 40s. She studied with seminal early figures in humanistic psychology and family therapy - Virginia Satir, Sidney B. Simon, Harry Sloan - and, in this double-faceted memoir, she thoughtfully teaches what she learned from them and from life. She shares case histories as she recounts how she used her education to help others. She covers the lessons she learned and the spirituality and wisdom that shape her legacy. Few people delve into the question "who am I?" with this degree of thoughtfulness and knowledge.