Donald Meichenbaum is a research director of the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment at the University of Miami.
15 Facts About Donald Meichenbaum
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At the time of his retirement from the University of Waterloo in 1998, Donald Meichenbaum was the most-cited psychology researcher at a Canadian university.
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Donald Meichenbaum was educated at William Howard Taft High School in New York City.
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Donald Meichenbaum then entered the City College of New York in 1958 with the intention of becoming an engineer, before changing course and graduating in 1962 as a psychology major.
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Donald Meichenbaum was accepted into the graduate psychology program at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
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Donald Meichenbaum wrote his dissertation, titled How to Train Schizophrenics to Talk to Themselves, having shown an interest in the topic of self-talk since childhood.
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Donald Meichenbaum graduated with an MA and PhD in clinical psychology with minors in the subjects of developmental psychology and physiology in 1966, working as a research assistant at a Veterans Health Administration hospital in Danville, Illinois alongside his studies.
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Donald Meichenbaum became assistant professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo in 1966.
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In 1977, Donald Meichenbaum co-founded and served as the associate editor of the journal Cognitive Therapy and Research.
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Donald Meichenbaum received the Canadian Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology as a Profession in 1990, receiving their Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997.
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In 2012, Donald Meichenbaum published Roadmap to Resilience: A Guide for Military, Trauma Victims and Their Families, a handbook to help service members reintegrate into civilian life and for clinicians translating evidence-based interventions into clinical guidelines for patients.
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Donald Meichenbaum has been a frequent critic of the proliferation of non-evidence-based techniques in the field of psychotherapy; his 2018 article How to Spot Hype in the Field of Psychotherapy, co-authored with Scott Lilienfeld, was chosen as the "most valuable contribution to the general field of psychotherapy" of that year by the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy which reviewed articles across 81 journals.
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Donald Meichenbaum was recognized for his contributions to psychotherapy, being named the tenth most influential psychotherapist of the 20th century in a 1982 survey.
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Donald Meichenbaum described spirituality as a means of finding meaning and direction, emphasizing its role in fostering forgiveness, empathy, and personal growth.
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Donald Meichenbaum acknowledged that spirituality or religion is not a universal solution but can be a valuable component in helping individuals recover from trauma.