Teachers College’s School Psychology program will host three talks by prominent guest speakers this fall.

“Although we have invited leading researchers and clinicians to present lectures to our School Psychology students and faculty for many years, this training has largely not been advertised,” says Philip Saigh, Professor of Psychology & Education and the School Psychology Ed. M. program Director. “This year, we are inviting the TC and Columbia University communities to these lectures. These talks should contribute to research and mental health practice across disciplines.”

On Thursday, October 20 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Grace Dodge Hall 539, Michael First, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University and Research Psychiatrist at the Biometrics Department at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, will speak on “Psychiatric Classification: Past, Present and Future.” An internationally recognized expert on psychiatric diagnosis and assessment issues, First served as Editor for text revisions of the fourth edition of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), the American Psychiatric Association’s compendium of standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders. He is the Editorial and Coding Consultant for DSM-5; the chief technical and editorial consultant on the World Health Organization's revision of the 11^th edition of the International Classification of Diseases; and an external consultant to the Research Domain Criteria project of the National Institutes of Mental Health. First has conducted expert forensic psychiatric evaluations in both civil and criminal matters, including the 2006 trial of the 9/11 accused terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

On Friday, October 28, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in Macy 130,Thomas Elder Davis III, Professor of Psychology at Louisiana State University, will speak on “One-Session Treatment of Specific Phobias.” Davis, directs LSU’s Psychological Services Center, conducts research on phobias and anxiety in children, and studies anxiety and autism. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Behavior Therapy, the Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, and Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review.

On Thursday, November 17, from 11:00 -12:40 in ZB 125, Stephen Ross, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine, will speak on “Child and Adolescent Addictions.” Ross is Director of the Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse at Bellevue Hospital, Clinical Director of the NYU Langone Center of Excellence on Addiction, and Director of the NYU Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship. The long-term goal of his research is to discover novel pharmacologic and psycho-social treatment paradigms for addictive disorders and for psychological and spiritual distress associated with advanced or terminal cancer. As the Principal Investigator of the NYU Psilocybin Cancer Project, he is exploring the potential therapeutic efficacy of existentially oriented psychotherapy assisted by psilocybin (a naturally occurring psychedelic compound produced by more than 200 species of mushrooms), to treat psycho-spiritual distress in patients with advanced cancer.

Published Friday, Oct 14, 2016