Archives: Experts

G. Alan Marlatt, PhD spent many years as a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters as well as five books, and his work on relapse prevention, assessment and harm reduction has had a wide impact on the treatment of addictions in the U.S. and abroad.

Dan Siegel, MD, is a Harvard trained physician and researcher as well as a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. Dr. Siegel is the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization which focuses on the study and application of Interpersonal Neurobiology, the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. Dr. Siegel is a practicing clinician and prolific author whose The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (2nd. Ed., Guilford, 2012) introduces the field of interpersonal neurobiology. His work has been extensively utilized by a number of clinical and research organizations worldwide and as such has been translated into over forty languages. His book Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence (Tarcher/Perigee, August 2018) introduces readers to his Wheel of Awareness, a powerful and pioneering tool for self-enhancement.

Cathy Cole, LCSW, has trained thousands of diverse professionals in MI since 1995, and is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers. She maintains an active clinical practice.

Carl Whitaker, MD, (1912-1995) was a physician and pioneering family therapist credited for the co-development of the symbolic-experiential approach to therapy and the use of co-therapy. Known for his charm and charismatic manner, he was one of the most powerful voices in shaping the practice of family therapy as it began to develop in the 1960s. Often provocative in his teaching, he told one interviewer, “Every marriage is a battle between two families struggling to reproduce themselves.”

Starting in 1946, Whitaker served as chairman of the department of psychiatry at Emory University, where he focused on treating schizophrenics and their families. He became a professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1965 until his retirement in 1982. During his tenure there, he refined and articulated his ideas about psychotherapy, which he coined symbolic-experiential family therapy, and his national influence on the emerging field grew stronger. His book The Family Crucible, written with Dr. Augustus Napier in 1978, continues to be a highly influential work in the field.

Carl Rogers (1902–1987) is one of the most influential psychologists in American history. His contributions are outstanding in the fields of education, counseling, psychotherapy, peace, and conflict resolution. A founder of humanistic psychology, he has profoundly influenced the world through his empathic presence, his rigorous research, his authorship of sixteen books and more than 200 professional articles. His best known books are: On Becoming a Person, Client Centered Therapy, Freedom to Learn, A way of Being, Carl Rogers on Personal Power, and Becoming Partners: Marriage and Its Alternatives.

Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD, has been active as a clinician, researcher and teacher in the area of posttraumatic stress and related phenomena since the 1970s. His work integrates developmental, biological, psychodynamic and interpersonal aspects of the impact of trauma and its treatment. His book Psychological Trauma was the first integrative text on the subject, painting the far-ranging impact of trauma on the entire person and the range of therapeutic issues which need to be addressed for recovery.

Dr. van der Kolk and his various collaborators have published extensively on the impact of trauma on development, such as dissociative problems, borderline personality and self-mutilation, cognitive development in traumatized children and adults, and the psychobiology of trauma. He was co-principal investigator of the DSM IV Field Trials for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. His current research is on how trauma affects memory processes and brain imaging studies of PTSD.

Arthur (Art) Freeman, EdD was Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine until his death in 2020. He was a past president of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy and of the International Association for Cognitive Psychotherapy. Dr. Freeman’s research and clinical interests included marital and family therapy and cognitive-behavioral treatment of depression, anxiety, and personality disorders. He has published 63 professional books including Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders, Clinical Applications of Cognitive Therapy, and The Comprehensive Casebook of Cognitive Therapy. He has also published two popular books, including Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda: Overcoming Mistakes and Missed Opportunities, and The Ten Dumbest Mistakes Smart People Make, and How to Overcome Them.

Arnold Lazarus, PhD is the originator of Multimodal Therapy. The author of 18 books and hundreds of scholarly publications and the recipient of numerous awards (including American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Psychologist Award), Dr. Lazarus is internationally regarded as a psychotherapist, writer, teacher, and clinical innovator. He’s a distinguished Professor Emeritus from Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology and previously served on the faculties of Stanford University, Temple University Medical School, and Yale University. As the Executive Director of The Lazarus Institute, Dr. Lazarus has maintained an active psychotherapy practice since 1959.

Albert Ellis was born in Pittsburgh in 1913 and raised in New York City. He made the best of a difficult childhood by using his head and becoming, in his words, “a stubborn and pronounced problem-solver.” Ellis graduated in 1934 with a degree in business administration from the City University of New York. His first venture in the business world was a pants-matching business he started with his brother.

In 1942 he returned to school, entering the clinical-psychology program at Columbia. He started a part-time private practice in family and sex counseling soon after he received his master’s degree in 1943. At the time Columbia awarded him a doctorate in 1947, Ellis had come to believe that psychoanalysis was the deepest and most effective form of therapy. He decided to undertake a training analysis, and “become an outstanding psychoanalyst the next few years.” The psychoanalytic institutes refused to take trainees without M.D.s, but he found an analyst with the Karen Horney group who agreed to work with him. Ellis completed a full analysis and began to practice classical psychoanalysis under his teacher’s direction.

In the late 1940s he taught at Rutgers and New York University, and was the senior clinical psychologist at the Northern New Jersey Mental Hygiene Clinic. He also became the chief psychologist at the New Jersey Diagnostic Center and then at the New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies. But Ellis’ faith in psychoanalysis was rapidly crumbling. He discovered that when he saw clients only once a week or even every other week, they progressed as well as when he saw them daily. He took a more active role, interjecting advice and direct interpretations as he did when he was counseling people with family or sex problems. His clients seemed to improve more quickly than when he used passive psychoanalytic procedures.

By 1955 Ellis had given up psychoanalysis entirely, and instead was concentrating on changing people’s behavior by confronting them with their irrational beliefs and persuading them to adopt rational ones. This role was more to Ellis’ taste, for he could be more honest himself. “When I became rational-emotive,” he said, “my own personality processes really began to vibrate.”

He published his first book on REBT, How to Live with a Neurotic, in 1957. Two years later he organized the Institute for Rational Living, where he held workshops to teach his principles to other therapists. The Art and Science of Love, his first really successful book, appeared in 1960, and he has now published 54 books and over 600 articles on REBT, sex and marriage. He was the President of the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy in New York, which offers a full-time training program, and operates a large psychological clinic.

Albert Ellis died in 2007.
(note: much of the above was excerpted with permission from the Albert Ellis Institute website.)

Aaron T. Beck, MD, is an American psychiatrist and a professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He is widely regarded as the father of cognitive therapy, and his pioneering theories are widely used in the treatment of clinical depression. Beck also developed self-report measures of depression and anxiety including the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Beck Hopelessness Scale, the Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSS), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and the Beck Youth Inventories. He is the President Emeritus of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy and the Honorary President of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy, which certifies qualified cognitive therapists.