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Candidate Statements - President Elect
I was traumatized by Paul Meehl when I was a graduate student. Meehl visited our clinical program, and I was among a small group of students that went out to dinner with him. This was a rare treat, especially since I had enormous respect for his insights on research, practice and the philosophy of science. At one point during the evening, someone asked him: “Dr. Meehl, to what extent is your clinical work informed by research?” Without any hesitation, he replied: “Not at all.”
As someone who was struggling to adopt the identity of scientist-practitioner, I left this memorable dinner disheartened. I don’t think I ever fully recovered. The challenge of how we can close the gap between research and practice has stayed with me all these years, and because I am attracted to challenges–my experiential colleagues would probably call it “unfinished business”–I have continued to be intrigued with the integration of research and practice.
Researchers and clinicians live in different worlds. As researchers, our lives are about convincing granting agencies to support our work and about publishing. As clinicians, our lives are about convincing insurance companies to support ongoing therapy sessions and about getting referrals. Although primarily an academic, I live in both worlds. In my role as Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Stony Brook University, I have been actively involved in therapy research and teaching. I have also experienced the clinical world through my limited practice and my supervision of graduate students. Indeed, I am proud to have received honors in these two arenas, starting with my award in 1998 from Division 12 for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Clinical Psychology. In 2000, I received the Division 29 (Psychotherapy) Award for Distinguished Psychologist. In 2001, I was awarded the APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Knowledge, and in 2003 the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy awarded me for Outstanding Clinical Contributions.
In considering the relationship between psychotherapy practice and research, I have viewed my clinical work as providing me with the context of discovery. In my role as clinician, I have been able to garner clinical hypotheses that I studied under better-controlled research conditions, designed to verify what had been observed clinically. The findings from this empirical context of verification could then, in turn, readily be fed back to the clinical community.
My 1999 presidential address before the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR) in Braga, Portugal dealt with the need for the field to reach a consensus, but underscored the importance of having converging input from both the research and clinical communities. In articles appearing in such journals as Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, American Psychologist, Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, and Psychological Bulletin, I have argued for the need to develop additional research paradigms to supplement our current clinical trials methodology, which would involve greater clinical input, and which could have greater clinical validity. As President of Division 12, I do all I can to foster a closer interface between research and practice.
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