Life Is About Change: A Professional Memoir

Abstract

Receiving my doctorate in 1961 just as John F. Kennedy was inaugurated president of the United States, I was inspired by his sentiment that any person can make a difference, and every person should try. In this memoir I review my professional journey of trying to make a difference in researching, teaching, supervising, and practicing clinical psychology and psychotherapy. I began my career by working on an evidence base for projective techniques. Upon joining the Stony Brook faculty, I shifted my efforts to research on and practice of behavior therapy, and then to the incorporation of cognition in developing cognitive behavioral therapy. Further work on integration consisted of closing the gap between research and practice, lowering the barriers that existed across schools of therapy, and incorporating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues into mainstream psychology.