Larry E. Beutler, professor of education and psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has received the 2000 Senior Distinguished Career Award from the Society for Psychotherapy Research (International).
Fellow psychologists honored Beutler last month during the society's annual conference near Chicago.
The UC Santa Barbara psychologist is one of the best known and most published leaders in clinical psychology.
He has devoted his academic career to studying the effectiveness of psychotherapy, the refinement of methodologies used in mental health and the development of training programs for enhancing graduate education.
Beutler is the father of "prescriptive psychotherapy" and a related assessement method called "systematic treatment selection." This approach grew out of his study of depressed and substance-abusing patients and finding the best way to match them with treatments.
His work naturally moved to training clinicians and graduate students in this new approach, teaching them to better recognize key qualities of patients and their problems, and to use these things in planning and conducting treatment that will be most effective.
Beutler has written some 350 scientific journal articles and chapters, and has edited or co-authored 14 books on psychotherapy and psychopathology. His latest books are "Prescriptive Psychotherapy," co-authored by Dr. Mark Harwood, also of UC Santa Barbara, and "Guidelines for the Systematic Treatment of the Depressed Patient," co-authored by Dr. John F. Clarkin of Cornell University Medical School and Dr. Bruce Bongar of the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology and Stanford University Medical School.
Both books were published this year.
Additionally, Beutler co-edits the "Journal of Clinical Psychology" and was an editor of the "Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology."
Beutler is a diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) and president-elect of the Division of Clinical Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA).
He is the past international president of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR) and past president of the Division of Psychotherapy of APA's Division 29.
He is a fellow of the APA, the American Psychological Society and the International Fellowship of Eclectic Psychotherapists.
Beutler has taught at UC Santa Barbara since 1990. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Nebraska and has served on the faculties of Duke University Medical School, Stephen F. Austin State University, Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Arizona's Health Sciences Center.
He is the director of the Counseling/Clinical/School Psychology Program in the Graduate School of Education at UC Santa Barbara.
The Society for Psychotherapy Research is an international, interdisciplinary organization dedicated to the scientific study of psychotherapy in all of its forms. It has more than 1,000 members worldwide and meets annually to exchange information with psychotherapy researchers from around the world.
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