Background and Credentials

Welcome! Because of the nature of this site, you may want to know something about me personally. I did not grow up in a religious home. After graduating from Admiral Farragut Academy, I attended Adelphi University where I became a Christian. At age 24, I completed my Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology) at the University of Southern California, and a year earlier began six years of full-time teaching at Mount St. Mary's College. At age 29, I was recruited to join the doctoral-level psychology faculty at Fuller Theological Seminary, where I became a tenured professor and remained for ten years. I left academia in my late thirties to work as a management consultant.

I have published extensively in scientific and professional journals and am the author of eight books. My near-record-length article in the flagship journal American Psychologist was called by one anonymous reviewer a “seminal contribution to the field.” I’ve been invited to contribute chapters to several textbooks and have often appeared on TV and radio. I was also invited to deliver the Windgate Charitable Foundation chapel addresses to students, staff, and faculty at Wheaton College.

In the 1980s, I founded Clinician's Research Digest, now owned and operated by the American Psychological Association, and the continuing education program for psychologists based on it. Although it is not given every year, in 2019 APA gave me its award for “Outstanding Contributions to Continuing Professional Development in Psychology.”

My passion throughout life has been to explore, study, and write about the intersections of psychology, theology, and philosophy. Although my doctorate is in psychology, I have worked to develop competence in theology and philosophy.

During the decade I taught on the faculty of Fuller’s Graduate School of Psychology, I enrolled in many graduate-level courses offered by its School of Theology.

Throughout my adult life, I have devoted thousands of hours to reading and studying theology and philosophy, and throughout my life engaging in extended tutorials with celebrated theologians and philosophers.

One summer while I was teaching at USC, I met and befriended Geddes MacGregor, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Philosophy. MacGregor had been educated at the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, Paris, and Heidelberg, and before his career at USC held the Rufus Jones Chair in Philosophy and Religion at Bryn Mawr. I spent a great many Saturdays learning everything I could from Geddes, who before his death wrote major textbooks in the philosophy of religion.

Below is a partial list of my publications and presentations.

Publications

Books

Clergyman's Psychological Handbook: Clinical Information for Pastoral Counseling (Eerdmans)

The Scandal of Psychotherapy: A Guide to Resolving the Tensions between Faith and Counseling (Tyndale)

Good Guys Finish First (Westminster)

Honest Christianity: Psychological Strategies for Spiritual Growth (Westminster)

Street-smart Ethics: Succeeding in Business without Selling Your Soul (Westminster John Knox)

Toxic Relationships and How to Change Them: Health and Holiness in Everyday Life (Wiley/Jossey-Bass)

Inspiring Trust: Strategies for Effective Leadership (Praeger)

Staying One: How to Avoid a Make-believe Marriage  [co-authored with Anna M. McLemore ](Cascade)

Journal Articles

Effects of varied instructions on ORT stories. Adelphi University Science Journal

The role of visual imagery in desensitization [with D. Davis and P. London]. Behaviour Research and Therapy

Imagery in desensitization. Behaviour Research and Therapy

Applications of balance theory to family relations. Journal of Counseling Psychology

Factorial validity of imagery measures. Behaviour Research and Therapy

Religion and psychotherapy: Ethics, civil liberties, and clinical savvy--A critique [with J Court]. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Another needed kind of clinical-social psychology. Society for the Advancement of Social Psychology

Whatever happened to interpersonal diagnosis?: A psychosocial alternative to DSM-III [with L. Benjamin]. American Psychologist

The nature of psychotheology: Varieties of Conceptual Integration. Journal of Psychology and Theology

Can a Christian be a behaviorist? Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation

CARE: Bridging the gap between clinicians and computers [with J Fantuzzo]. Professional Psychology

Toward a more rigorous definition of social reinforcement [with D. Brokaw]. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Teaching students to think [invited article]. The Clinical Psychologist

Interpersonal behavior and therapeutic progress: Therapists and patients rate themselves and each other [with J. Rudy and R. Gorsuch]. Psychiatry

Personality disorders and dysfunctional interpersonal behavior [with D. Brokaw, invited article]. Journal of Personality Disorders

Invited Chapters and Encyclopedia Articles

Relational psychotherapy: The clinical facilitation of intimacy [with P. Hart]. J. Anchin and D. Kiesler (Eds), Handbook of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (Pergamon)

Evangelical churches [with D. Hubbard]. D. Schuller, M. Strommen, and M. Brekke (Eds.), Ministry in America (Harper & Row)

Psychotherapy as a spiritual enterprise. S. Jones (Ed.), Psychology and the Christian Faith: An Introductory Reader (Baker)

Counseling and psychotherapy: An overview. D. Benner (Ed.), Psychotherapy in Christian Perspective (Baker)

Moral and ethical issues in treatment. D. Benner (Ed.), Psychotherapy in Christian Perspective (Baker)

Interpersonal models of personality and psychopathology [with D. Brokaw]. D. Gilbert and J. Connolly (Eds), Personality, Social Skills, and Psychopathology (Plenum)

Many articles in D. Benner (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology (Baker) and D. Benner and P. Hill (Eds.), Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology & Counseling

Conference Presentations

Skinner's quandaries. Public symposium on Skinner, Freedom, and Dignity (Mount St. Mary's College)

Automated assessment, counseling, and referral system: Toward the optimal use of computers in clinical psychology (Western Psychological Association).

Some logical contradictions. Public symposium on Psychotechnology and Mind Control (Mount St. Mary's College)

Chair of symposium on Emergence of Clinical-Social Psychology (California State Psychological Association)

Chair of symposium on Clinical-Social Psychology (Western Psychological Association)

Chair of symposium on Religion and Psychotherapy (Ameircan Psychological Association)

Discussant for symposium on The Convergence of Sex Role Androgyny and Interpersonal Concepts of Personality (Western Psychological Association)

Chair of symposium on New Frontiers in Interpersonal Theory, Research, and Practice (American Psychological Association)

Selfism and socio-legal policy. (Western Gerontological Association)

Workshop: Diagnosing interpersonal behavior: Supplementing DSM-III (California State Psychological Association)

Interpersonal perspectives on psychopathology (Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy)