Richard R. Abidin is a noted

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 ...

who has devoted much of his career to studying the relationships between parents and children. He served as founder and director of School/Clinical Child Psychology Ph.D. Program from 1967 to 1979, served as director of the Institute of Clinical Psychology between 1979 and 1988 (professor of education and psychology APA) and served as director of the Curry Programs in Clinical and School Psychology between the years 1988–1995 at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

. Abidin retired in 2003; he is now emeritus professor, lecturer and consultant to Curry Programs in Clinical and School Psychology at the same university. He is a fellow of the

American Board of Professional Psychology The American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) is the primary organization for specialty board certification in psychology. Mission statement "The mission of the American Board of Professional Psychology is to increase consumer protectio ...

, 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 ...

, the American Association for Applied and Preventive Psychology, and the Academy of Clinical Psychology. Abidin has also served as president of a number of psychological societies, such as the Society for the Study of School Psychology, Society for Child and Family Policy and Practice, Society of Clinical Psychology, Virginia Psychological Association, and chair of the Virginia Board of Psychology. Abidin has been honored with the

Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology The Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (SCCAP) is an academic and professional society in the United States that was established to encourage the development and advancement of clinical child and adolescent psychology through int ...

Distinguished Career Award in 2017, and the Abidin Award was established to recognize and support a distinguished early career psychologist. Abidin has created several assessment measures that aid clinicians in determining the functionality of a parent-child relationship. He is the author of the Index of Teaching Stress (ITS), the Early Childhood Parenting Skills Program, a measure which assesses the level of teacher stress, the Parenting Stress Index, 3rd Edition (PSI), which identifies parent-child problem areas in parents of children ages 1 month to 12 years in order to identify dysfunction relationships, and coauthor of the Parenting Alliance Measure (PAM), and the Stress Index for Parents of Adolescents (SIPA), which respectively assess the degree of cooperation between parents and the level of stress between parents and their adolescent. Abidin helped organize in 1967, served on the board of directors and was consultant to Oakland School, Keswick, VA.

Notes and references

External links

Richard R. Abidin, EdD
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University of Virginia Curry School of EducationInBalance, Fall 2017 describing Dr. Abidin's achievements
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abidin, Richard 20th-century American psychologists University of Virginia faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Place of birth missing (living people) American child psychologists 21st-century American psychologists