Clinical psychology has always had an uneasy home in university departments of psychology because it attempts to combine academic education with professional training. The tension between the two educational goals is not always easy to resolve within a single department.

Unlike most clinical psychologists, who emphasize either academic or therapeutic work, I have been devoted to teaching the "Boulder model" of clinical psychologyßequal involvement in generating new theoretical and scientific knowledge, and in developing interventions that may benefit individuals, families, and institutions in difficulty. I believe that there must be ongoing feedback among theory, research, and practice so that research informs our attempts to help people experiencing various forms of intellectual and emotional dysfunction, while intervention is subjected to systematic and rigorous empirical evaluation. Clinical psychologists who are not involved in intervention and assessment tend to do unproductive clinical research. Clinicians who are not conversant with current theory and research risk being irresponsible to their clients. In my teaching, I try to serve as a model of the academic clinician, simultaneously involved in both roles. I TRY TO STRUCTURE THE CLASSES I TEACH SO THAT STUDENTS MUST GRAPPLE WITH THE ISSUES OF PROVIDING SERVICE AND DOING RESEARCH.

A second theme that runs through my teaching is commitment to multiple theoretical perspectives. I am much concerned with epistemology and philosophy of science and I am convinced that no school or theorist has a monopoly on truth. Though I have spent some time developing a theoretical approach to the understanding of psychopathological development, I attempt to give fair and thoughtful treatment in our program, in classes, in individual clinical supervision, and in research supervision, to the major biological, psychological, and social theories of normal development and psychological dysfunction.

For my undergraduate classes, I have developed a set of lectures presenting seven different accounts of psychopathology: all of them adopt a family systems perspective, but they range from genetic studies of twins to theories that emphasize ethnic stereotypes as a source of bias in the diagnostic process. Students get the clear message that there is no single correct answer to the questions of how to describe or account for mental illness. THEY ALSO BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THE POTENTIAL STRENGTHS OF EACH THEORY IN ACCOUNTING FOR A LIMITED SET OF PHENOMENA.

Because the material is often anxiety provoking to undergraduates, I feel that I have to be personal with them, direct, and able to point to some of my own vulnerabilities as a way of illustrating the fact that everyone copes with the kind of psychological issues sometimes ascribed luridly only to people labeled as disturbed. I feel that I am good at answering studentsØ questions; even in a very large class I always spend a substantial amount of time in classroom give-and-take. My assignments for midterms and finals always give students a chance to demonstrate that they have worked and read, but these exams also demand that students think about and integrate materials from the course and from their clinical work. Each year I have always supervised one or two undergraduate students who are doing research on topics relevant to clinical or developmental psychology.

As a part of my effort to improve the quality of undergraduate teaching, I have worked with graduate students to supervise their teaching and supervision of undergraduates. I want to help them provide, in discussion sections or supervisions of fieldwork, the kind of safe environment in which students feel free to explore their ideas and feelings about people experiencing psychological difficulty and about heir own growth and development as individuals.

I do not feel that I am a charismatic teacher, holding students spellbound by the eloquence of my words. What students get when they take a class with me, I believe, is a chance to see and hear me thinking out loud about work in which I am passionately involved and invested. In return, with their attentive comments and questions, students stimulate me to reach beyond my current level of understanding, to arrive at new and exciting ways of conceptualizing a problem, or doing research that someday, may help change the lives of people like those who participate in the studies.

In sum, I have always attempted to convey a particular vision of clinical psychology as an integration of academic and professional and personal pursuits. I have worked hard to provide both undergraduates and graduate students with a setting in which they can develop their knowledge of others and their understanding of themselves.

Revised: 1994