Marvin Goldfried
American psychologist
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Early life
Marvin Goldfried was born in 1936 in Brooklyn to parents who emigrated from Eastern Europe. Goldfried was the first in his family to pursue education beyond a high school diploma. He attended Brooklyn College where he earned a bachelor's degree in psychology, graduating in 1957. While attending college, he was a member of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity through, which he participated in service to the college. He went on to earn a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at University at Buffalo in 1961, where he was first exposed to the writings of foundational minds in the field such as Freud, Rogers, and Skinner. He recalled feeling inspired by John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, which encouraged every American to try and make a difference. He also recalled noticing that there was sparse empirical background for his clinical training and meagre clinical experience in the departmental research faculty. This observation reflected the "gap" between science and practice. During his graduate studies, he completed a summer internship at the VA Palo Alto Hospital. While there he witnessed the development of both behavior therapy and family therapy.
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Career
Faculty Positions
After graduating with his PhD at the age of 25 in 1961, Goldfried joined the faculty at University of Rochester. He taught a graduate seminar and recalled being younger than all the students in the class. While at Rochester, he found little focus on behavioral research in the department. He later left the institution, and joined the psychology department at Stony Brook University in 1964 to work on developing a graduate program in clinical psychology. He became director of the training clinic, during which time the idea of supervision as part of the faculty teaching load was instituted in the department. This had not been a standard part of clinical psychology doctoral programs. Goldfried then focused his contributions to the rapidly developing clinical discipline of behavior therapy, with particular focus on providing the patient with coping skills.
Research on CBT
In 1968, Goldfried and his colleagues organized an American Psychological Association symposium dedicated to the exploration of cognition into behavior therapy. Drawing insight from foundational influences like Albert Ellis, Albert Bandura, and others, Goldfried researched interventions that would eventually be described as cognitive behavioral therapy. He published Clinical Behavior Therapy in 1976 with his colleague Gerald Davison, which included a chapter on integrating cognitive interventions in behavior therapy, a groundbreaking idea at the time. Goldfried has made a point in his writings that there was no "father of cognitive-behavior therapy" as it was very much a "family affair."
Goldfried would go on to contribute to the literature on psychotherapy outcome research by facilitating clinical trials of the CBT model. Among the most common applications for this treatment were various forms of anxiety. He also collaborated with Marsha M. Linehan when she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Stony Brook. During this period of his career, Goldfried became more interested in psychotherapy integration, and co-founded the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) together with Paul Wachtel in the early-1980s. In the mid-1990s, he served as the founding editor of In Session: Psychotherapy in Practice, which prioritized writing in "jargon-free" language in order to maximize resonance with any and all theoretical orientations.
Leadership in Organizations
In 2010, Goldfried became president of the Society of Clinical Psychology, Division 12 of APA, and began an initiative to build a Two-Way Bridge between Research and Practice. This initiative provided a way for practicing clinicians to provide feedback to researchers about their use of empirically supported treatments. The Two-Way Bridge initiative has surveyed therapists on their clinical experiences in treating clients with panic disorder, social anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress.
LGBT Research and Advocacy
Goldfried's interest in LGBT issues have strong roots in his time living and working during the 1970s, when gender roles were undergoing societal transformation. He considers himself a feminist and has participated in men's consciousness-raising groups. He once consulted with Gloria Steinem about consciousness raising groups after running into her on a flight. Goldfried's interest and advocacy was also inspired by his relationship with his gay son, Mike. As a strong proponent of the power of familial support for members of sexual minorities, he founded AFFIRM: Psychologists Affirming their LGBT Family, a network of family members in psychology with LGBT relatives that encourages research, clinical work, education, and advocacy.
Goldfried has served as president of multiple scientific associations such as the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR), American Psychological Association (APA) Division 12 (Society of Clinical Psychology) and Division 29 (Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy).
Since retiring from Stony Brook, he spends time giving occasional talks, reviewing manuscripts, and recording episodes of his podcast Talking Therapy with colleague Allen Frances.
Personal life
He is married to Anita Goldfried. They have two children.