George Lincoln Walton

Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1854, George Lincoln Walton built his career as a physician specializing in nervous disorders. He was associated with Harvard as a clinical instructor in diseases of the nervous system and worked with the neurological department of Massachusetts General Hospital.

Walton also wrote books that reached far beyond medical circles. His best-known title, Why Worry?, presented anxiety and worry in a plain, approachable way, aiming to help ordinary readers manage unhealthy thought patterns and daily stress.

He died in 1941, but his writing still feels surprisingly modern. Later commentators have noted that some of his ideas about irrational thinking and emotional disturbance anticipated themes that became important in twentieth-century psychotherapy.