Daniel Offer (December 24, 1929 – May 13, 2013) was a psychiatrist and scholar who challenged prevailing beliefs that adolescence is inherently a time of storm and stress.

This contribution shifted fundamentally how adolescent development was understood scientifically and provoked recognition that theory from patient populations was inadequate.

He is also remembered for his scholarship on normality, the viability of memory, the Offer Self Image Questionnaire and for fostering the field of adolescent developmental studies.

He is a grandson of Professor Ludwig Ferdinand Meyer, M.D., a pediatric gastroenterologist and Director of the Emperor and Empress Friedrich Children’s Hospital in Berlin, Germany.

Offer grew up in Jerusalem and, in February, 1948, he joined the Palmach (Strike Force) of the Israeli army.

In 1990 he became Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, attaining emeritus status in 2008.

The book[1] incorporates interviews with nephrologists, nurses, social workers, dieticians, technicians and dialysis patients and their families.

He received eight years of federal grants to study the psychological development of normal adolescents.

In the first phase of the study seventy three boys were selected from two suburban Chicago area high school and followed for eight years.

The major finding for the high school phase was that stability and not turmoil, was the overriding characteristic of normal adolescents.

Because of this interest, Offer and his colleagues undertook a cross cultural study of the self-image of adolescents in ten countries.

The authors were in charge of an inpatient unit for this population at the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute, a setting which allowed for an in depth study.

In the early 1990s Holinger, Offer and colleagues examined the rates of suicide and homicide among adolescents in order to determine the causes and suggest means of prevention.

He was a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Palo Alto California, 1973-1974.