| Lorraine Granit, Ph.D. | Licensed Psychologist | |||||
| Walnut Creek, CA | ||||||
|
||||||
|
My Philosophy |
|
When I attended Berkeley, psychology departments at the major universities throughout the country had adopted what they called the Boulder Model. Members of the psychology academic community met in Colorado to decide how best to train psychologists. It was determined that they should be trained to be researchers, teachers and clinicians. At the time, I did not see the wisdom of this approach. I put up with being trained as a social scientist and while I enjoyed studying the biological sciences I considered it all as the price of admission to learn what I was really interested in, treatment. Fast forward to about 15 years ago when brain research began to explode as well as research into early childhood development. My training in understanding research methodology and the biological sciences became invaluable. I saw that this research would transform clinical practice and it has indeed. What I heard and read fit my 20 years of clinical experience up to that point in time. I would often find myself sitting across from a patient whose life was improving in extraordinary ways thinking, "This person's brain has changed; I wish I understood how." I am grateful to those wise teachers from many years ago. While I do not engage in research myself, I am able to more fully understand the ramifications of this research because of my graduate training, which enables me to proactively integrate these cutting edge discoveries into my practice. The articles that I have reprinted here will give you an idea of some of the exciting things we are learning. I have further discovered that the combination of clinical practice, keeping up to date on research, and teaching (I conduct continuing education courses for other mental health professionals, write informational articles and consult on difficult cases) keeps me sharp and honest. |
