Meet Christopher Martell, Ph.D.

Autobiography

I am Professor of Practice and direct the Psychological Services Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  I first joined as a student member of ABCT in 1985.  I was a practicing clinician in Seattle for 23 years, and on clinical faculty in departments of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Washington. I bring leadership experience from and connections to other organizations having been a past president of APA Division 44, the American Board of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology, the Washington State Psychological Association and having served on several committees in ABCT.

I have had the opportunity to take my clinical expertise and contribute to the treatment literature through research on behavioral activation for depression and scholarship on conducting CBT in an LGBT-affirmative manner.  I have trained clinicians on three continents in BA and on CBT with LGBT+ clients and worked with research teams internationally as well.  I provide the perspective of having negotiated an academic and professional world that was not always open or transparent to me, as a first generation, openly gay, student. I have lived in both clinical and academic worlds, and in have cultivated relationships with CBT professionals worldwide. I have run for ABCT president-elect on two other occasions and last year built a collegial relationship with my opponent leading to a narrow defeat for me but opened doors for us to work well together.  I believe this is still the right time for me to serve in this role for the association.

Position Statement

ABCT depends on academia, practitioners, and students to advance CBT dissemination. We were originally called the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy. Advancement implies action, which has remained a strong value in the Association.  Expanding CBT access, strengthening researcher-practitioner collaboration, and fostering innovation through rigorous research and practice-informed interventions require contributions from investigators, students, clinicians, and individuals with lived experience.

My goal is to work closely with committees and SIGS to increase opportunities for involvement from our diverse membership. Clinicians often have less research exposure at conferences, and smaller SIGs, particularly those representing marginalized identities, may feel overlooked or isolated.   To advance CBT, we must foster inclusivity and collaboration. While ABCT leads in the development and study of empirically supported treatments, partnerships and joint ventures with other organizations (e.g. Society for Psychotherapy Research) can further progress in evidence-based care and build creative alliances. I remain committed to fully realizing our diversity of disciplines and continuing emphasizing diversifying membership in terms of race/ethnicity, gender-identity and sexual orientation.

Through transparency from the Board, leadership opportunities, opportunities to present at conferences, and gaining Fellow status can be demystified and made more available to all members. It is also important to continue to learn from our most senior members, and to harness the vision of our student members to achieve our initiatives. ABCT should be a place of inclusion and a shared brain trust, unhindered by any form of bias that limits our value to members and the public.

Questions from ABCT Special Interest Groups

1. What is your main vision for ABCT?

Answering this question at this time in history is difficult.  First and foremost, I would now say that I want ABCT to be a place for on-going scientific discussion, where innovative ideas can be hatched through conversations at conferences and over listservs. Most especially, as a professional organization, ABCT can ensure that our members who come from identity groups and backgrounds that are currently being slandered, targeted, and harmed can be given respect and support for their work as scientists, clinicians, and human beings.  I believe in united fronts and people working together, and this has always been my thought about how dissemination of ESTs will best work, not just developing them in University labs and then training clinicians to dutifully carry them out, but by really integrating practice and science, by involving clinicians in the process of development.  ABCT is the ideal organization to work to make these kinds of integrations happen.

2. In light of recent challenges affecting DEI priorities, how do you see yourself supporting diverse students and scholars within ABCT (e.g., professional development, presentation and dissemination of their work, grants and other support)?

ABCT will maintain its commitment to DEI.  If government or legal pressures somehow threaten that commitment and we can have workshops and professional development seminars on how to keep the work going, perhaps with changing language, or wording in grants that avoids the “triggers.” I would consider a possibility of ABCT supporting legal consultation for members for how to move research forward within the context of whatever legal barriers are put forward.  While not at this level of threat, we have members with experience in doing research during the early 2000s when funding for HIV research or LGBTQ+ focused research was under threat, they can be a resource for diverse students and scholars.  Where we can gather donated funds for student scholarships from members, that money can be used to support work that is being systematically unsupported through the Federal Government, at least for funding to help students or young scholars to present their work at convention (in consultation with the fundraising and development committee, and the program committee).

3. What do you see as training gaps for training the future of CBT practitioners and how would you address those gaps in your role?

There is a strong history of idiographic research in CBT.  Observing the problem, developing interventions and testing the efficacy of the intervention.  We moved, somewhat too far in my opinion, toward basing treatment on diagnosis. Current work on process-based treatment is a welcome correction to that, and the case conceptualization approaches of Jackie Persons or of Art and Chris Nezu have always supported the client-focused, idiographic approach.  With the great work done in developing RCTs and the re-focus on process, I would like to develop a webinar series, or a focused set of workshops at convention,  in consultation with the CE committee and some of the professional committees like the dissemination and implementation committee,  that could provide evidence-based, systematic, “how to” conduct process-based treatment or how to do RCTs with fidelity and flexibility to meet the need of the person rather than the presentation of the diagnosis.

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