When Anita Disney was growing up in Adelaide, Australia, friends and family assumed she would become a scientist. After all, her father was a biologist and one of the founding faculty members of Flinders University.
But in what she admits may have been a bit of youthful rebellion, Disney gained admission to a performing arts magnet high school and threw herself into music, Shakespearean drama and dance classes. In college she pursued a bachelor of arts, majoring in drama. Then she encountered psychology.