American Psychological Foundation
APF honors lifetime achievement in psychology
At APA's 2006 Annual Convention in New Orleans, Aug. 10-13, the American Psychological Foundation (APF) will present four 2006 Gold Medal Awards for Life Achievement, which recognize enduring contributions to the application, practice and science of psychology, and to psychology in the public interest. APF President Dorothy W. Cantor, PsyD, will present the medals at an awards ceremony on Friday, Aug. 11, at 4 p.m. Meet the winners:
APPLICATION AWARD
Eric Schopler, PhD
Schopler was born in Fürth, Germany, during the rise of Hitler, and as a child he became aware that some of his Jewish teachers, friends and acquaintances were disappearing. He later found out that many were imprisoned or killed. Such dramatic experiences sparked a lifelong search for answers as to why certain individuals and groups are socially excluded, misunderstood and scapegoated by their fellow citizens.
His family moved to the United States and settled in Rochester, N.Y., where Schopler finished high school and joined the U.S. Army. While enlisted, he earned a graduate degree in social service administration and his PhD in clinical child psychology with the Committee on Human Development at the University of Chicago.
Shortly after Schopler joined the faculty of the psychiatry department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Robert Reichler, PhD, arrived from the University of Chicago to complete his residency in child psychiatry. Reichler had read Schopler's dissertation research on receptor processes and wanted to work with him. They began work on the research's applications in the treatment of autism with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health. Through the Child Research Project, they conducted studies on both autistic children and their parents-studies that would subsequently build the foundation for the statewide program Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication Handicapped Children (TEACCH), the first university-based program to study and treat autism spectrum disorders.
From his studies of parents of children with autism, Schopler showed most did not suffer from mental disorders, as many believed at the time. What's more, he found that parents of children with autism could be effective collaborators in the treatment and education of their own children, and that parent-blaming psychogenesis was a form of scapegoating.
Schopler applied lessons learned from these and related studies in an educational program involving parents and public school teachers as collaborators. This paradigm shift was recognized and supported with federal research funds and endorsed by the North Carolina legislatures in 1972. At the request of the state's Department of Public Instruction, the number of TEACCH classrooms was expanded from the original 10 to 300, and the number of TEACCH Centers was expanded from three to 10. Psychiatric colleagues recognized the TEACCH Model in 1994 when they included it in the treatment volume of the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as a cutting-edge intervention for the autism spectrum.
PRACTICE AWARD
Jack G. Wiggins Jr., PhD
After graduating from high school, Wiggins enrolled in the University of Oklahoma and took his first class in psychology. His studies were cut short, however, when he was drafted into the Army and served in the Philippines with the 33rd Infantry Division and later in Japan as part of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's Honor Guard. After the war, Wiggins continued his education and obtained his doctorate in clinical psychology from Purdue University in 1952.
Throughout his career, Wiggins has been a leader in practice initiatives and public mental health policy. For instance, when insurers began reimbursing treatments for mental health services in the late 1950s, they paid for psychiatric services but not for psychological treatment. Wiggins addressed that inequality by advocating for a Ohio psychology licensing law, ultimately enacted in 1972, the Ohio freedom of choice law, enacted in 1973, and Ohio's mandatory mental health law, enacted in 1978. In 1990, Wiggins received a Resolution of Appreciation and Congratulation from the Ohio Senate for his legislative efforts.
At the federal level, Wiggins and Gene Shapiro, PhD, provided the testimony for the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 that gave psychology reimbursement parity with psychiatry and increased access to mental health treatment. This legislation served as a model for the Americans with Disabilities Act 15 years later.
Wiggins was instrumental in the formation of psychology advocacy by the Council for the Advancement of Psychological Professions and Sciences (CAPPS) in 1971. In that capacity, he initiated successful legislation that granted all federal employees reimbursed access to psychological services. After CAPPS merged with the Association for the Advancement of Psychology, Wiggins initiated a successful antitrust complaint with the Ohio Attorney General in federal court against the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospitals for blocking hospital staff membership for psychologists. This allowed psychologists to serve as full members of medical staffs of hospitals and treat their patients in hospitals.
Wiggins served as APA's president in 1992, the association's centennial year. Some of his presidential accomplishments included revising the APA Ethics Code, instituting the consolidated board and committee meetings, creating the Rural Task Force and forming the APA Disaster Response Network and new ties with the American Red Cross. Wiggins served as president of APA's Div. 29 (Psychotherapy) in 1979 and helped form APA's Div. 42 (Independent Practice). In addition, he founded Div. 55 (American Society for the Advancement of Pharmacotherapy) and became its first president in 2002.
Wiggins continues to work for prescriptive authority for psychologists and consults with states interested in adopting prescriptive authority.
PUBLIC INTEREST AWARD
Asher R. Pacht, PhD
Pacht was born in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1922. He received a bachelor's degree in 1944 from Ohio University and his PhD in 1953 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
His first professional position was as supervising psychologist in the Bureau of Clinical Services of the Wisconsin Division of Corrections. Despite intending to stay only one year while completing a research project, he served for 24 years, ultimately as director of the state's corrections bureau. Afterward, he served as deputy commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, in charge of all its treatment activities.
Under Pacht's guidance, Wisconsin developed a comprehensive program for mental health diagnostic and treatment services for juveniles and adults who were incarcerated, on probation or on parole. These programs, including a pioneering sex-crimes treatment program, received national and international recognition and have helped influence public perception and acceptance of psychology in criminal-justice settings. Pacht also helped develop the first APA-approved clinical internship in corrections.
In 1977, on retiring from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Pacht served as director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Psychology Research and Training Clinic, with primary responsibility for applied clinical training of graduate students. Pacht retired as an emeritus clinical professor in 1991, though he still supervises advanced graduate students working in the clinic.
In 1984 Pacht redoubled his efforts advocating for reform in licensing and regulation. He served two terms on the Wisconsin Examining Board and was chair from 1986 to 1991. His activities with the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB) included six years on the Board of Directors, one year as president (1992-1993), sitting as chair and or member of 18 committees or task forces, and writing or editing six major regulatory guidelines. Pacht served as ASPPB's director of professional affairs from 1984 until his resignation in 2003. He currently serves as the executive director of the ASPPB Foundation.
Throughout his career, Pacht has been active in professional affairs. He was twice elected president of the Wisconsin Psychological Association. He served two terms on APA's Council of Representatives, two terms on APA's Board of Professional Affairs, one term on APA's Board of Educational Affairs and was a member of numerous APA committees and task forces.
SCIENCE AWARD
Albert Bandura, PhD
Bandura was born in 1925 in Alberta, Canada. He pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and received his PhD from the University of Iowa. He then joined the faculty at Stanford University in 1953, where he completed more than a half-century of academic service. Bandura rose through the ranks at Stanford, chaired the department briefly and was awarded an endowed chair in 1974.
Bandura's initial program of research at Stanford focused on the centrality of social modeling in human self-development and change. He found the behavioristic focus on learning through response effects was at odds with the power of social modeling. His program of research furthered understanding of the determinants and mechanisms governing modeling and provided the underpinnings of applications designed to ameliorate some urgent global problems.
In response to transformative changes in the explanation and modification of human functioning in the 1960s, Bandura published the book "Principles of Behavior Modification" (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), which provided a theoretical and analytic framework for this paradigm shift.
In 1973, Bandura was elected president of APA. During his presidency, Bandura focused on creating ways to bring scientific knowledge to bear on public policies and social practices that affect people's lives. During the past few decades, Bandura has been developing his social cognitive theory, which is rooted in an agentic perspective. In this conceptualization, people are producers of their life circumstances, not just products of them. They are proactive, self-regulating and self-reflecting; perceived self-efficacy is accorded a pivotal role. As Bandura puts it, whatever other factors serve as guides and motivators, they are grounded in the core belief that one has the power to effect changes by one's actions. In his landmark volume "Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory" (Prentice Hall, 1985), Bandura provides an analysis of his theoretical approach.
--E. Merck, I. Ramos and E. Packard
Randolph A. Smith honored for teaching excellence
APF will honor Randolph A. Smith, PhD, with its 2006 Charles L. Brewer Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award at the APA/APF awards ceremony on Friday, Aug. 11, during APA's 2006 Annual Convention in New Orleans, Aug. 10-13.
Smith was born in Corsicana, Texas, in 1951. In the summer of 1973, Smith entered Texas Tech University's graduate psychology program, where he studied human learning and memory. In the summer of 1977 Smith began teaching at Ouachita Baptist University (OBU) in Arkansas. In the 1980s, Smith became involved with APA's Div. 2 (Society for the Teaching of Psychology) and served terms as membership chair, program chair and fellows chair. He also was involved in the Southwestern Psychological Association (SWPA), serving as membership chair, program chair and an executive council representative. He was elected SWPA president in 1990.
Smith's ongoing collaboration with Charles L. Brewer, PhD, motivated him to apply for the editorship of Teaching of Psychology. He was chosen to fill that position and has served as editor of the journal since 1997; his second term will end in 2008. As editor, Smith has focused on promoting the scholarship of teaching through a more rigorous assessment of student learning. Smith also worked as co-founder and co-organizer of the Southwest Conference for Teachers of Psychology, established in 1991.
In 2003, Smith left OBU to become department chair at Kennesaw State University. During Smith's tenure as chair, the department has grown from about 500 to 800 majors and from nine tenure-track faculty to 18.
At APA's convention, Smith will deliver his Distinguished Teaching of Psychology Award Address, "Lessons Learned: Getting by With a Little Help from My Friends," on Friday, Aug. 11, at 11 a.m.
APF and the APA Science Directorate invite nominations for the 2006 Todd E. Husted Memorial Award. This $1,000 award recognizes a person whose dissertation demonstrates great potential to contribute to the development and improvement of mental illness services for those with severe and persistent mental illness.
Topics relevant for the award include those that:
Foster the development of a more comprehensive, humane and responsive system of mental health care.
Develop a protective and humane sequencing of interventions to prevent the deterioration, homelessness and premature deaths of those with serious mental illness.
Develop effective methods of improving patient compliance with medication and treatment for those with impaired insight as a result of schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder.
Demonstrate practical methods of improved identification, diversion and treatment of people with mental illness who, as a result of that illness, enter the criminal-justice system.
Foster methods to improve training and social attitudes of professionals in the criminal-justice system regarding the role of serious mental illness in the behaviors of mentally ill offenders.
Increase access to and utilization of appropriate services and supports for the most treatment-resistant and severely mentally ill persons.
The application deadline is Sept. 15. For more information, visit Husted Award.
--Compiled by E. Merck,I. Ramos and E. Packard
