APA – Fordham Now

Upcoming At Fordham: Conference on Men and Masculinity

Patrick Verel — Mon, 21 May 2012 15:38:30 +0000

Psychotherapists of one ilk or another have been making their rounds for millennia. And for just about as long, men have generally shied away.

“We don’t seek help for our problems, we don’t talk about our problems,” said Jay C. Wade, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology. “Men have not been consumers of any kind of help. So they don’t go to doctors, and they definitely don’t go to therapists.”

Wade, the current president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity, also known as Division 51 of the American Psychological Association (APA), wants to change that collective state of mind.

He and a colleague, Mark S. Kiselica, Ph.D., professor and former chair of the Department of Counselor Education at The College of New Jersey, have organized the 3rd National Psychotherapy with Men Conference, to be held on Saturday, June 9 at the Lincoln Center Campus.

Presented by the APA, the conference’s aims are to broaden psychotherapy’s reach into the male population, and boost therapy’s treatment success rate with men, Wade said.

Keynote speakers are James O’Neil, Ph.D., professor of educational psychology at the University of Connecticut, who will focus on men’s gender role conflicts; and Douglas C. Haldeman, Ph.D., a clinical professor of psychology at the University of Washington, who will discuss power and privilege in relationships between gay therapists and straight male clients within the therapeutic context.

Breakout sessions will address topics that include psychotherapy with young men, the returning male war veteran, women counseling men, humor in psychotherapy, and substance abuse counseling—all aspiring to “help men to be better men,” Wade said.

Although men might consent to go through a therapist’s door once, Wade said, the challenge is to get them to return. That often requires that a therapist rethink his or her role, and to take stock of cultural changes that have helped to broaden therapy’s appeal for men.

Much of that shift, Wade contends, is attributable to how parents born in the 1950s and 1960s raised their young boys to be more attuned to both their inner and outer worlds—and then to articulate their sentiments without fear of compromising their “maleness.”

“Boys and young men are much more able to express emotions,” said Wade. “That was impossible 20 years ago.”

Serious obstacles remain, though—perhaps principally, women’s ascendancy in the world of work, underscored last year, when for the first time in U.S. history, women comprised a majority of the workforce.

Although gender norms continue to change as family responsibilities and dynamics shift, Wade said, “Men in general in our culture have felt they should be the leader of the family and be the provider.”

Today’s current economic climate can lead to overall cultural anxiety, said Wade, and may be especially difficult for men, given those male gender role expectations.

The conference will address this and other topics relating to how psychotherapy meets the specific needs of men today.

The full conference program is online at http://www.fordham.edu/audience/pmc/index.htm

— Richard Khavkine

APA Honors Psychology Professor Emerita

Patrick Verel — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 21:44:51 +0000

Olivia Hooker, Ph.D., was among the first group of women to obtain a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in clinical psychology.
Photo courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard

Olivia Hooker, Ph.D., professor emerita of psychology, was honored in August by the American Psychological Association at the group’s 119th annual meeting, held in Washington D.C.

APA President Melba J.T. Vasquez saluted Hooker’s decades of pioneering contributions to psychology and social justice, and emphasized her capacity to overcome adversity.

“As a survivor of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, Dr. Hooker learned at an early age to turn adversity into opportunity and to use her many gifts and talents in service to others. She was the first African American woman to go on active duty in the United States Coast Guard and among the first group of women to obtain a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in clinical psychology,” Vasquez said.

Hooker’s work in founding the Tulsa Race Riot Commission illustrated how she is a model of resiliency and courage, and embodies the APA’s mission of promoting human welfare.

“She has worked tirelessly to ensure that victims of racism and violence are not forgotten,” Vasquez said.

Psychology Researcher Gets APA Recognition

Janet Sassi — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 21:51:24 +0000

Fordham’s Monica Rivera Mindt, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology, has been selected as the American Psychological Association’s Division 40 Early Career Award recipient for 2011.

The award is given annually to one APA member psychologist that is no more than ten years post doctoral degree, who has made a distinguished contribution to neuropsychology in research, scholarship, and clinical work.

Rivera Mindt is co-investigator of a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to gauge the cognitive functions in HIV-positive Latinos in New York who are on anti-retroviral therapies. The $1 million study will help identify cognitive and sociocultural barriers that may interfere with the ability of the cohort to adhere to their medication regimens.

As an award recipient, Rivera Mindt has been invited to present her research at the 119th Annual APA convention, to be held in Washington D.C. on Aug. 4 to 7.

Rivera Mindt teaches in the graduate program in clinical psychology and at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She has been a member of the Fordham faculty since 2002.

This is Rivera Mindt’s second national award; last October she received the 2010 Early Career Service Award from the National Academy of Neuropsychology. That award was given to her for her professional service, her service to the community, and her outstanding teaching/mentoring of her students.

—Janet Sassi

Celia Fisher Installed as Marie Ward Doty Chair

Fordham News — Mon, 17 Nov 2003 15:35:13 +0000

NEW YORK- As a freshman at Cornell University, Celia B. Fisher, Ph.D., enthusiastically
agreed to participate in a psychological study, only to be humiliated when she
was told that another participant quit the study because she disliked Fisher. As
it turns out, it was all part of the plan—the purpose of the “deception” study
was to measure the effects of humiliation.

Even though the researcher later explained this to Fisher, it would be
years before she fully understood this research method and got over the
embarrassment it caused her.

This experience, along with her early research with children, drove
Fisher to investigate ethical issues in psychological research, she told an
audience in the William D. Walsh Family Library’s Flom Auditorium on Nov. 12.
Her lecture, “Wisdom, Learning and Justice in Health Care Research,” was part of
the Sapientia et Doctrina lecture series and marked Fisher’s installation as the
Marie Ward Doty Professor of Psychology. She was awarded the Sapientia et
Doctrina medallion for her distinguished scholarship and contributions to ethics
policies for health research and practice.

During her lecture, Fisher said that she entered the field of psychology as “a
warrior in the scientific quest for knowledge,” however, “motherhood stopped me
dead in my Donna Quixote tracks.” While testing infants in studies on visual
perception, she started to wonder if exposing babies to even mild discomforts
was worth the benefits of the research.

“These experiences and other fortuitous professional circumstances drew me
into the field of ethics,” said Fisher, who is also the director of Fordham’s
Center for Ethics Education. She added, “I approached my newfound cause with the
same formalism with which I had pursued scientific knowledge years earlier. I
hoped that through an ethicist’s armory of moral principles and moral
frameworks, one could construct a universal code of research ethics free of
subjective bias.”

Fisher quickly learned that her mission would be fraught with
philosophical dilemmas. She realized that traditional approaches to ethical
decision-making were problematic because they prioritized the reasoning ability
of scientists while ignoring and devaluing the perspectives of research
participants.

“I realized that the best way to truly care for research participants is
to understand their point of view,” she said. “And the best way to understand
their point of view is to ask them.”

Fisher has spent years learning from and providing ethical guidance to
vulnerable communities, such as children, ethnic minorities and adults with
developmental disabilities. Through her research, she has been faced with
questions of moral obligation, including researchers’ responsibility to help
teenagers in trouble and to ensure that their research does not stigmatize a
community.

“I have learned so much from these communities,” she said, referring to
ethnic minorities. “Their views have forced me to question the validity of my
own worldviews and the extent to which my cultural lens may unintentionally harm
or disenfranchise ethnic minority participants.”

Two years ago, Fisher chaired a Fordham Ethics Center-sponsored
conference that, with support from the National Institute of Mental Health and
the American Psychological Association (APA), developed the first published
guidelines for ethical conduct in mental health research involving ethnic
minority children and youth. She has also helped to develop educational tools to
make sure that adults with developmental disabilities understand and can give
informed consent for research and treatment. For five years, Fisher chaired the
APA’S Ethics Code Task Force, which was responsible for revising the Ethical
Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. The code took effect on June 1,
2003. Fisher is currently a member of the Secretary of Health and Human
Services’ Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections.

As the occupant of the Marie Ward Doty Chair, Fisher will continue to lead the
much-needed academic inquiry into the area of ethical research involving a wide
variety of vulnerable populations. The Doty Chair was established in 1980
through a generous endowment by George E. Doty (FCO ’38) in honor of his wife,
Marie.

Fordham University’s motto, Sapientia et Doctrina (Wisdom and Learning),
emphasizes rigorous scholarship and embraces a community of men and women
committed to exploring the life of the mind. In this spirit, a lecture series
celebrating the inauguration of the 32nd president of Fordham University, Joseph
M. McShane, S.J., was established.

The Sapientia et Doctrina medallion is bestowed upon individuals of
national and international renown who have made substantial contributions to the
advancement of their disciplines and to an understanding of the ideals to which
a Jesuit education summons us.