Donald H. Meichenbaum (born June 10, 1940) is an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. He is a research director of the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment at the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, incl ...

. Meichenbaum is known for his research and publications on

psychotherapy Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome pro ...

, and contributed to the development of the technique of

cognitive-behavioural therapy Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions (suc ...

(CBT). In 1982, a survey of 800 members of the

American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States, with over 133,000 members, including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students. It ha ...

voted Meichenbaum the tenth most influential psychotherapist of the 20th century. At the time of his retirement from the University of Waterloo in 1998, Meichenbaum was the most-cited psychology researcher at a Canadian university.

Education

Meichenbaum was educated at William Howard Taft High School in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He then entered the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

in 1958 with the intention of becoming an

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

, before changing course and graduating in 1962 as a psychology major. He was accepted on to the graduate psychology program at

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

. He wrote his dissertation titled ''How to Train Schizophrenics to Talk to Themselves,'' having shown an interest in the topic of

self-talk Intrapersonal communication is the process by which an individual communicates within themselves, acting as both sender and receiver of messages, and encompasses the use of unspoken words to consciously engage in self-talk and inner speech. Intr ...

since childhood. He graduated with an MA and PhD in

clinical psychology Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...

with minors in the subjects of

developmental psychology Developmental psychology is the science, scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult deve ...

and

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

in 1966, working as a research assistant at a

Veterans Health Administration The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) is the component of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) led by the Under Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Health that implements the healthcare program of the VA through a national ...

hospital in

Danville, Illinois Danville is a city in and the county seat of Vermilion County, Illinois. As of the 2010 census, its population was 33,027. As of 2019, the population was an estimated 30,479. History The area that is now Danville was once home to the Miami, K ...

alongside his studies.

Career

Meichenbaum became assistant professor of psychology at the

in 1966. During his tenure at Waterloo he began a research program exploring the role of

cognitive Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

and

emotion Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...

al factors in the behaviour change process. Several papers and books authored by Meichenbaum during his tenure at Waterloo focused on the use of self-instruction to effect behaviour change, which became a core principle of

. Meichenbaum applied this concept to numerous areas of psychotherapy, including

post-traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...

impulsivity In psychology, impulsivity (or impulsiveness) is a tendency to act on a whim, displaying behavior characterized by little or no forethought, reflection, or consideration of the consequences. Impulsive actions are typically "poorly conceived, prema ...

in school children,

test anxiety Test anxiety is a combination of physiological over-arousal, tension and somatic symptoms, along with worry, dread, fear of failure, and catastrophizing, that occur before or during test situations.Zeidner M. (1998). ''Test anxiety: The state of th ...

in college students, and adults with

chronic pain Chronic pain is classified as pain that lasts longer than three to six months. In medicine, the distinction between Acute (medicine), acute and Chronic condition, chronic pain is sometimes determined by the amount of time since onset. Two commonly ...

anger Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat. A person experiencing anger will often experience physical effects, su ...

, and

substance abuse Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is the use of a drug in amounts or by methods which are harmful to the individual or others. It is a form of substance-related disorder. Differing definitions of drug abuse are used in public health, ...

issues. In 1977, Meichenbaum co-founded and served as the associate editor of the journal ''Cognitive Therapy and Research''. Meichenbaum's 1985 clinical handbook ''Stress Inoculation Training'' is used by the

United States Department of Veterans Affairs The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers a ...

as one treatment for PTSD in veterans. He received the

Canadian Psychological Association The Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) is the primary organization representing psychologists throughout Canada. It was organized in 1939 and incorporated under the Canada Corporations Act, Part II, in May 1950. Its objectives are to imp ...

Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology as a Profession in 1990, receiving their Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997. Following his retirement from the University of Waterloo in 1998, Meichenbaum joined the Melissa Institute for Violence Prevention and Treatment of Victims as research director, which is based at the University of Miami's School of Education and Development, where Meichenbaum also worked as distinguished visiting professor. In 2012, 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. 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 Scott O. Lilienfeld (December 23, 1960 – September 30, 2020) was a professor of psychology at Emory University and advocate for evidence-based treatments and methods within the field. He is known for his books ''50 Great Myths of Popular Psyc ...

, 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.

Role in developing cognitive-behavioural therapy

While the

cognitive revolution The cognitive revolution was an intellectual movement that began in the 1950s as an interdisciplinary study of the mind and its processes. It later became known collectively as cognitive science. The relevant areas of interchange were between th ...

in psychology took place in the 1960s, the combination of cognitive and behavioural approaches in

did not gain traction until the mid-1970s. Building on

Albert Ellis Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was certi ...

' technique of rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) and

Aaron T. Beck Aaron Temkin Beck (July 18, 1921 – November 1, 2021) was an American psychiatrist who was a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.

's technique of

cognitive therapy Cognitive therapy (CT) is a type of psychotherapy developed by American psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck. CT is one therapeutic approach within the larger group of cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) and was first expounded by Beck in the 1960s. Cogn ...

, Meichenbaum developed the therapeutic technique of cognitive-behaviour modification, publishing the 1977 clinical handbook ''Cognitive Behaviour Modification: An Integrative Approach''. Cognitive-behaviour modification is an umbrella term which describes treatments that aim to change overt behaviours by changing thought patterns and cognitive processes. Cognitive-behaviour modification and CBT have been described as "nearly identical in their assumptions and treatment methods", the difference being cognitive-behaviour modification seeks overt behaviour change as a therapeutic outcome while CBT aims to change cognitions in the assumption that behaviour change will follow. In the same 1982 survey that voted Meichenbaum the tenth most influential psychotherapist of the 20th century, ''Cognitive-Behaviour Modification'' was voted "the 4th most representative book of the current zeitgeist in counselling and psychotherapy". Meichenbaum developed the techniques of self-instructional training (SIT) and

stress inoculation training Stress exposure training is the practicing of important existing skills in a stressful and distracting environment to develop the ability to perform them reliably in spite of the circumstances. There are a number of occupations where a potentially ...

, which are described as two of the six major cognitive-behavioural therapies in the ''Handbook of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapies'' ''(4th ed.)'' (Dobson, 2019). While Ellis and Beck are often cited as the two founders of the basic clinical model of cognitive-behavioural therapy approaches, the model proposed by Meichenbaum was found to occupy the cognitive-behavioural realm with authoritativeness equal to those proposed by Ellis' REBT and Beck's cognitive therapy during the 1970s (alongside models proposed by

Arnold Lazarus Arnold Allan Lazarus (27 January 1932 – 1 October 2013) was a South African-born clinical psychologist and researcher who specialized in cognitive therapy and is best known for developing multimodal therapy (MMT). A 1955 graduate of South Africa' ...

and Michael J. Mahoney).

Publications

Books

* ''Cognitive Behaviour Modification: An Integrative Approach'' (1977) * ''Coping with Stress'' (1983) * ''Stress Reduction and Prevention'' (1983) * ''Pain and Behavioral Medicine: A Cognitive-Behavioral Perspective'' (1983) * ''Stress Inoculation Training'' (1985) * ''Facilitating Treatment Adherence. A Practitioner's Guidebook'' (1987) *''A Clinical Handbook/Practical Therapist Manual for Assessing and Treating Adults with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)'' (1994) * ''Nurturing Independent Learners: Helping Students Take Charge of Their Learning'' (1998) * ''Treatment of Individuals with Anger-Control Problems and Aggressive Behaviors: a Clinical Handbook'' (2001) * ''Roadmap to Resilience: A Guide for Military, Trauma Victims and Their Families'' (2012) * ''The Evolution of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy: A Personal and Professional Journey with Don Meichenbaum'' (2017) * ''Treating Individuals with Addictive Disorders: A Strengths-Based Workbook for Patients and Clinicians'' (2020)

Articles

Meichenbaum has published extensively in academic journals and conferences. A comprehensive archive of these publications is maintained at th
Melissa Institute website

"Training impulsive children to talk to themselves: a means of developing self-control"
', Journal of Abnormal Psychology'' (1971)
"Examination of model characteristics in reducing avoidance behavior"
''Journal of Personality and Social Psychology'' (1971)
"Cognitive modification of test anxious college students"
''Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology'' (1972)
"Training schizophrenics to talk to themselves: A means of developing attentional controls"
''Behavior Therapy'' (1973)
"Cognitive behavior modification"
''Scandinavian Journal of Behaviour Therapy'' (1977)
35 Years of Working With Suicidal Patients: Lessons Learned
, ''Canadian Psychology'' (2005)
Ways to improve political decision-making: Negotiating errors to be avoided
, ''Psychological and Political Strategies for Peace'' (2011)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meichenbaum, Donald American cognitive psychologists Psychotherapists University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni American expatriate academics Academic staff of the University of Waterloo American expatriates in Canada Scientists from New York City 1940 births Living people