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Health Psychology
Faculty
Matthew Budd, M.D., is an Internist, author, researcher and teacher. He graduated from Harvard Medical School, taught and practiced there, and retired from active practice in 2003. He is currently in training as a Jungian Analyst.
Dr. Budd founded the Behavioral Medicine program at the Harvard Community Health Plan. This program grew steadily and served more than 3,000 patients. He developed an exportable version of this program, purchased by the Pfizer Pharm. Company and widely distributed. He has authored many articles evaluating and describing mind/body interactions and programs which help people in their search for wellness. He is author of the widely acclaimed book, You Are What You Say (Random House, 1999).
Steve Levinson, Ph.D., is a psychologist who wears many hats. In addition to being a clinician, he is a consultant, inventor, author, and entrepreneur. Levinson earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Queens College of the City University of New York and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Rochester in 1973. Director of an innovative rural mental health program for over 30 years, he is also adjunct clinical professor of psychology at the University of North Dakota, and president of Behavioral Dynamics, Inc., a company he co-founded in 1987 to develop, manufacture, and market the MotivAider®, a behavior change tool he invented that is used worldwide in the healthcare and education industries. Levinson has devoted much of his career to understanding why people often fail to follow through on their own good intentions. His critically acclaimed book (co-authored by Peter Greider), Following Through (1998), advanced a bold and provocative theory that has resulted in extensive international media exposure, including appearances on ABC TV’s 20/20 and BBC radio.
Susan H. McDaniel, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine, Director of institute for the Family in the Department of Psychiatry, and Associate Chair of the Department of Family Medicine, at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Her special areas of interest are behavioral health in primary care, and family dynamics and genetic conditions. She is a frequent speaker at meetings of both health and mental health professionals. Dr. McDaniel has received many awards, most recently the Award for Distinguished Contribution to Education from the Association of Medical School Psychologists in 2004, and the American Psychological Foundation/Cumming PSYCHE Prize in 2007. Dr. McDaniel was the first psychologist to complete the Bureau of Health Professions Primary Care Policy Fellowship in 1998. She is currently on the Board of the American Family Therapy Academy and a member of the American Psychological Association Council and the Committee for the Advancement of Psychological Practice. Dr. McDaniel co-authored or co-edited the following books: Systems Consultation (1986), Family-Oriented Primary Care (1990 and 2005), Medical Family Therapy (1992), Integrating Family Therapy (1995), Counseling Families with Chronic Illness (1995), The Shared Experience of Illness (1997), the Casebook for Integrating Family Therapy (2001), Primary Care Psychology (2004), The Biopsychosocial Approach: Past, Present, and Future (2004), and Individuals, Families, and the New Era of Genetics (2007). She is currently working on a 2nd edition of Medical Family Therapy. Her books have been translated into German, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and Turkish. She was co-editor of the journal Families, Systems & Health and is currently an Associate Editor of the American Psychologist.
Sarah Pressman, Ph.D., is the Beatrice Wright Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Kansas. Dr. Pressman’s research examines the influence of psychosocial factors on physiological and health outcomes with a focus on how positive psychological factors “get under the skin” to decrease the livelihood of illness, disease and mortality. She has published in many well-regarded peer-reviewed journals and her work has been widely cited by the media, including The New York Times, WebMD, PBS, Psychology Today, and FOX News. In June 2007, her article “Does positive affect influence health”?, co-authored with Sheldon Cohen, Ph.D., was selected as one of the most cited and influential papers in the fields of Psychiatry and Psychology by Essential Science Indicators, a publication of the Research Services Group of Thomson Scientific. Dr. Pressman has received scholar awards from many organizations, including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society, the American Psychosomatic Society, the International Positive Psychology Summit, and Gallup.
Deborah Taylor, Ph.D., received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a subspecialty in health psychology from the University of Kansas in 1985, and subsequently completed a postdoctoral internship at Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship in chronic and cancer pain, she returned to Ohio State University Hospital to direct a psychology consultation service for hospitalized medical patients. A native Mainer and a graduate of the University of Southern Maine, Taylor was very pleased to return to her home state in 1992 to join the faculty of the Central Maine Medical Center Family Practice Residency Program where she serves as the director of Behavioral medicine to primary care physician trainees, and continues to pursue her special interest in providing clinical care to patients with medical illness and/or chronic pain conditions. Taylor’s research interests focus on the psychological impact of illness, pain, and disability on the patient and their family/support system.
Elizabeth Vella, Ph.D., received her Ph.D. in Psychological Science form Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2005 and subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Cardiovascular Behavioral Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh in 2007. She is currently and Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern Maine. Her research interests include the psychophysiology of emotion and personality, with an emphasis on measures of autonomic nervous system activity in relation to health and disease; psychosocial factors and cardiovascular risk, and physiological mechanisms that may explain these associations; and the influences of trait hostility and anger management style on cardiovascular reactivity/poor recovery to stress in the etiology of cardiovascular disease. Her research has appeared in some of the top journals in health psychology including the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, Health Psychology and the International Journal of Psychophysiology. Dr. Vella is currently in the process of establishing her research programs in health psychology here at USM to study biopsychosocial models in stress and coping. Her current projects include serotonergic enhancement in hostile adults to reduce resting blood pressure and heart rate levels; the interrelationships between trait measures of hostility and daily reports of hostile moods and social strain; stress reduction in breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy; and the utility of emotion disposition measures in predicting cardiovascular responses to mood induction.
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