Personal statement
I trained in the US as a Clinical Psychologist and am licensed as a Psychologist in the State of Ohio. I have expertise in Person-Centred-Experiential psychotherapy and counselling in general and specifically in Emotion-Focused Therapy, of which I am one of the originators. I am a psychotherapy research methodologist with experience in a wide variety of research methods. I received my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from UCLA in 1978. I taught at the University of Toledo 1978-2006, where I am now Professor Emeritus of Psychology. I have also held visiting faculty positions as Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), York University (Canada), University of Sheffield (UK), and La Trobe University (Australia). I served as President of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (2000-2001) and as co-editor of the journal Psychotherapy Research (1994-1998). I co-authored Facilitating emotional change (1993, with Leslie Greenberg and Laura Rice), Learning process-experiential psychotherapy (2004, with Jeanne Watson, Rhonda Goldman, and Leslie Greenberg), and Research methods in clinical psychology (3rd ed., with Chris Barker & Nancy Pistrang), as well as more than 150 journal articles or book chapters. I am a Fellow in the Divisions of Psychotherapy, Clinical Psychology, and Humanistic Psychology of the American Psychological Association. In 2008 I received the Carl Rogers Award for Contributions to Humanistic Psychology form the American Psychological Association, as well as the Distinguished Career Award of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. I also served as co-editor of the journal, Person-Centered Counseling and Psychotherapy (2001 – 2005).
Teaching
• Counselling and psychotherapy research methods (PG Diploma and MSc levels)
• Person-centred/experiential counselling and psychotherapy
• Emotion-Focused Therapy
Research interests
In general, my main research focus is on how clients change in humanistic-experiential psychotherapies, especially Person-Centred and Emotion-Focused therapies for social anxiety. By necessity, this encompasses studying the outcome of these therapies, as well as clients' experiences of what they found helpful or unhelpful. I believe that a range of research methods are appropriate for studying change processes, including quantitative and qualitative, group designs and single case studies, measure development research, meta-analyses and meta-syntheses, and even, where appropriate, randomised clinical trials.
More specifically, my current research focuses on the process and outcome of Emotion-Focused Therapy with Social Anxiety. I am also involved the following:
• Measure development research to support research on humanistic-experiential psychotherapies (eg, individualised outcome assessment; assessment of person-centred-experiential therapist competence)
• Meta-analytic research on the effectiveness of humanistic-experiential psychotherapies across a variety of client populations (eg, depression, anxiety, psychosis)
• Development of a person-centred taxonomy of client presenting problems based on the Personal Questionnaire
Professional activities
- British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Research Conference
- Organiser
- 5/2011
- British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Research Conference
- Organiser
- 5/2010
- Dutch Client-centred Psychotherapy Society
- Keynote/plenary speaker
- 5/2009
- Event to be assigned
- Keynote/plenary speaker
- 1/2008
more professional activities
Projects
- A Qualitative Outcome Study for Social Anxiety
- Robinson, Anna (Principal Investigator) Rogers, Mr B (Co-investigator) Elliott, Robert (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2016 - 01-Jan-2017
- A comparison of good and poor outcome cases of person-centred & emotion-focused therapies to identify variables that support socially anxious clients' engagement in early stages of trauma focused work
- Elliott, Robert (Principal Investigator) Carrick, Lorna (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2016 - 31-Jan-2017
- CLICD - Counselling versus Low-Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Interventions for mild Depression
- Cooper, Mick (Principal Investigator) Elliott, Robert (Co-investigator)
- CLICD - Counselling versus Low Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Interventions and Treatment as Usual for Persistent Subthreshold and Mild Depression: Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial
- 01-Jan-2012 - 31-Jan-2014
more projects
Address
Counselling
Graham Hills Building
Graham Hills Building
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