Kristen Abraham

My name is Kristen Abraham and I’m a fourth year student in the clinical-community program.  In 2003, I graduated from Albion College in Albion, Michigan with my BA in psychology.  I am originally from the metro Detroit area.

“To me community psychology is a field of study that allows me to use a scientific approach to help those who are in some way disadvantaged.  I enjoy community psychology because my values are welcome here.  I am able to be an advocate for underserved populations as well as a scientist.  Since coming to Bowling Green, I’ve had many opportunities to enact my values.  I’ve conducted research on case managers’ expectations regarding the ability of people with serious mental illness to obtain employment, worked with a speakers’ group comprised of people with serious mental illness and their families, and promoted men’s involvement in a psychosocial rehabilitation clubhouse for people with serious mental illness.  In my latest endeavor I am working to promote the physical health of people with serious mental illness through a program entitled The Healthy Lifestyles Project.  Each of these experiences has afforded me the opportunity to act in a way consistent with my values and to apply principles of community psychology to “real life” situations.”

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Erin Bonar

Hello, I am third year student originally from Alexandria, Kentucky.  I received my B.S. in Psychology from Northern Kentucky University in 2004.  My primary research interests are harm reduction and substance abuse. 

“To me, Community Psychology means applying the resources associated with psychological research and practice to enhancing the experience of one’s surrounding community or population of interest.  In the frame of my own research interests, this means advocating for the implementation of harm reduction interventions for illicit drug users.  Harm reduction and Community Psychology go hand-in-hand, both promote positive change and prevention.  Harm reduction not only seeks to improve the health of the drug user, but also benefits the non-using community through related reductions in the spread of disease, drug-related crimes, and the socioeconomic costs related drug abuse.”

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David Faigin 

I am currently a fifth year doctoral student in the Clinical-Community program.  I am originally from Silver Spring, Maryland, and graduated from Wesleyan University in ’99 with a BA in Neuroscience and Behavior.  I am currently planning my dissertation project that will use qualitative methods to explore the lived experiences of actors living with severe mental illness. I hope to focus on creative expression and group process, community integration, identity development, and empowerment.  Other then community psychology, some of my other interests include theatre, singing in a cover band, improvisation in all forms, and playing with my dog Tucker.

“Working with, and for, other people has always been important to me.  For me, community psychology means focusing on prevention, emphasizing personal and group strengths (vs. pathology), giving voice to the silenced, truly seeing those we study as “participants” not “subjects” in research, and doing research as intervention.  Clinical work affords me the opportunity to grow as an evaluator, therapeutic helper, and knowledgeable advocate.  Even more important to me, though, is the opportunity the community (systems / ecological) perspective affords me to reframe and expand the role of researcher and clinician.  I do not believe you can heal the individual without simultaneously working to understand and heal the broader system that surrounds and influences that individual.   I do not believe we can call our research “important” without, in part, allowing the research participants themselves to define the importance of that research for them.  In short, I see community psychology offering a path to move beyond old paternalistic/ authoritative models to more inclusive and progressive clinical and research practices.”

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Wendy Fogo

Hello! I’m Wendy Fogo. I am originally from theCleveland area and graduated in 2003 from Baldwin-Wallace College. I am currently a fourth year student in the clinical-community program and my interests include emergency and disaster response. I am interested in the impact of crises to the larger community, the use and effectiveness of mental health services following a disaster, and the network of disaster response organizations. In addition, I am interested in disaster preparedness, PTSD, trauma, and anxiety. Outside of school, I enjoy cooking (and like to think I’m good at it!), working on my photo albums, visiting friends and family in Cleveland, and spending time with my dog, Ronin.

“For me, clinical-community psychology is a great fit because it allows me to employ many of the values that I believe are important. These include respect for diversity, developing partnerships to promote positive change and support individuals, evaluating resources and institutions, and preventing against dysfunction. Given my interests and ideals, community psychology was a natural choice for me. I enjoy being able to initiate change on a larger level in addition to gaining an understanding on an individual level. The individual in his or her environment is crucial to understanding the system as a whole; the integration of both of these ideas can lead to developing new programs or making important changes to the status quo to ensure that the needs of all individuals are met while accounting for individuality and diversity.”

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Shinakee Gumber

Hello, I am Shinakee Gumber, currently a second year doctoral Student in the Clinical–Community Program. I was born in New Delhi, India and have obtained my B.A. and M.A. in Psychology from the University of Delhi.  The broad area of my research interest lies in trying to understand psychosocial aspects of Adult Psychopathology and toward this end, I am working with Dr. Catherine Stein. Outside of my present academic interest, I enjoy reading, traveling and watching movies and following international political affairs

“For as long as I can remember, I have had this need to find a passion, a cause, an over-arching goal to which I could potentially dedicate a major portion of my life to. Clinical Community Psychology provides me with the very foreground where I am discovering my life’s objective. The discipline equips me with abilities that will ultimately help me serve mental health consumers, the community, and the society at large.  In addition, en route to serving these goals, it cultivates my personal needs, which are to amass a wider Psychology based knowledge repertoire, grow as a human being and have rich life experiences. Unlike the somewhat more parochial branches of psychology, Clinical Community Psychology also caters to my fascination for and inclination towards looking at the larger picture and instituting change at the system’s level rather than at the individual level. Over the years as I graduated in my understanding of clinical psychology, I developed strong ideologies and principles. Now it seems as if I have a real opportunity to translate some of my beliefs into action and contribute to a newer ethos in the field of mental health.  Up until recently, researchers and clinicians had been subliminally contributing to a culture of hopelessness in so far as Serious Mental Illness is concerned. However through my research, I would like to join hands with other community psychologists in developing rhetoric and thereby persuading people both within and outside the mental health community to adopt a more benevolent attitude towards the outcome of Serious Mental Illness. Although at times, this task of steering in a paradigmatic shift seems Herculean and futile, it nonetheless still evokes the utmost excitement in me to be part of a discipline, which seems to have the necessary tools of both qualitative and quantitative research to realize these goals.”

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Christine McAuliffe

Greetings and salutations! I am Christine McAuliffe, a fifth year student. My interests primary lie in working with children, adolescents, and families. I am pursuing my degree in Child Clinical Psychology from a Clinical-Community psychology perspective. I am learning the techniques and perspectives of both child and community clinical psychologists in order to become as prepared as possible to practice in the world of systems that children and families inhabit. I am originally from Northern New York (Watertown to be exact) and graduated in 2000 from St. Lawrence University with majors in Psychology and Biology.

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Aleisha Pfaff

Hello!  My name is Aleisha Pfaff, and I am currently a second year graduate student in clinical psychology.  I graduated with a BA in psychology and music from Concordia College in Moorhead, MN.  I am originally from LaMoure, ND, where the snow actually accumulates and blizzards are a common occurrence.  My research interest is in spiritual struggle and families who have a member with serious mental illness.  In addition to psychology, other interests include music, art, traveling, and spending time with loved ones.

“To me, clinical-community psychology provides a unique framework for research and practice that involves researchers, community members, and the multiple levels of society where they interact.  Additionally, clinical-community psychology emphasizes diversity and empowerment, especially the empowerment of disenfranchised groups.  Perhaps most important to me is the recognition that problems are sometimes best solved at the systems level, rather than solely working towards a change in the individual.”

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Alexis Spencer

I am a second year Clinical-Community doctoral student.  I am originally from California, and received my B.A. from the University of California Santa Cruz in 2004.  Snow is new to me and I am adjusting to Midwest living. My interest is in working with the Deaf community.  I also enjoy traveling, photography, being in nature, and spending time with loved ones, including my kittens.

“I am drawn to Community Psychology because of its emphasis on respect and recognition of diversity, its proactive rather than reactive approach, and its value of assigning more equal roles to “participant” and “researcher”.  Also, I feel it is vital to conceptualize people and their communities in a cultural and historical context.  Most of all, Community Psychology to me means people empowering themselves.”

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Hisham Abu Raiya

I am a 5th year student in the clinical psychology program at BGSU and currently on predoctoral internship at the Counseling and Consultation Center at Ohio State University. I was born in Palestine/Israel and graduated from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1997 with a BA in psychology and sociology, and with an MA (without thesis) in clinical psychology from the same university four years later. I came to the United States in 2003 as a Fulbright scholar. My main research area is the psychology of religion, especially the psychology of Islam. In June 2006, under the tutelage of Dr. Kenneth Pargament, I completed my dissertation in which I developed a Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness (PMIR) that can be utilized in mental health research. My future research will aim at developing a better understanding of the different ways in which Islam affects the psychological well-being of its adherents

“Five ideas summarize what community psychology means to me. The first idea is social justice. Community psychology is deeply committed to helping marginalized and disenfranchised groups to gain control over their fates and improve their lives' circumstances. The second idea relates to action and change. As an action-focused field of inquiry, community psychology strives to create societal and systemic changes that can improve the life quality of individuals and communities. The third idea is the intriguing idea of small wins. Community psychologists prefer to start small and to win by making immediate tangible progress. Over time, small wins might create a cascading process, which sets the stage for a broader change later. The fourth idea concerns the view of human nature. To be a community psychologist means to renounce searching for the pathological and the destructive and to believe that humans are constructive, growth-oriented creatures. The fifth idea that drew me to community psychology is that it is about people working with other people for the benefit of everybody."

Kyle Cabral

Aloha! I am Kyle Cabral, a fourth year student in the clinical psychology program. I most recently graduated from the University of Hawaii with a B.A. in Psychology in May of 2004. Though I was born and raised in Pearl City, Hawaii, I have lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Seville, Spain, and Osaka, Japan. My research interests include drug and alcohol use and its link to risky sexual behavior in gay and bisexual males. I'm also interested in gay identity development, internalized homonegativity, and the psychometrics and measurement of these constructs. Outside of school, I enjoy running, swimming, traveling, and playing volleyball.

"Clinical-community psychology is a set of values that governs the way I engage the world. In my world, clinical-community psychology has taught me to give voice to those that otherwise might not have a voice. My research interests include marginalized populations, such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or questioning individuals, along with ethnic minority populations. To belong to one of these groups often presents its own set of challenges, but to belong to both of these groups presents a unique set of challenges, often marginalization from both groups. As a psychologist, through both my clinical and research work, one of my goals is to give voice to these populations. Clinical-community psychology gives me a set of values from which to attain this goal. The reduction of stigma is a constant struggle for community psychologists. Another goal of mine is to reduce the stigma of chemically dependent, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and ethnic minority individuals."