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The CEP Pulse—Psychology & Counseling There’s Strength in Numbers Chuck Barké, Ph.D.
Dr. Chuck Barké Chair, Psychology & Counseling
At the Spring 2016 UT Tyler graduation ceremony, we graduated our first Honors in Psychology students, who were also the first Honors in any major at UT Tyler. This group of 5 students participated in advanced coursework and carried out research projects that were successfully submitted and presented at a regional Honors conference. Two more graduated in December 2016. We also have 16 currently enrolled Honors in Psychology students, including 2 Sophomores, 6 Juniors and 8 Seniors. This fall semester, we welcomed 45 new undergraduate Bachelor of Applied Arts and
Sciences (BAAS) majors who selected Psychology to complete their degree. These students will take all of their courses fully online, providing maximum flexibility for a student population that includes many full-time working nontraditional students. This past summer the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) reviewed our two-year progress report for our Clinical Mental Health Counseling (CMHC) master’s program, and voted to extend our accreditation another six for a total of eight years, the maximum allowable. We are pleased to have achieved this milestone, a reflection of the commitment and efforts of our
faculty and staff. Also this past summer, the University of Texas System Board of Regents voted unanimously to give preliminary planning authority for our department’s proposal for a new Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychology. We have now submitted the full proposal to the UT System, which will act on it at their February 2017 meeting. If approved then, it will be submitted to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for full approval. Once fully approved, we hope to be able to admit our first cohort of doctoral students for the Fall 2018 semester. We appreciate the strong support from (Continued on page 7)
Research Spotlight on Dr. Sarah Sass: Understanding and Developing Computer Methods to Treat Anxiety
Dr. Sarah Sass Associate Professor of Psychology
Dr. Sarah Sass, Associate Professor of Psychology, has a research lab, the Clinical Psychophysiology Research (CPR) Lab, where she and graduate and undergraduate research team members are using electrophysiological and computer -aided processes to help better understand the brain activity associated with anxiety, and create new, cutting-edge treatments for anxiety using computerized interventions. They are studying the potential effectiveness of teaching individuals with anxiety to redirect attention away from
stimuli that create and maintain unwanted anxiety toward stimuli that help reduce anxiety. This treatment method is known as attention training, and will be an intervention that can be used with computer software and eventually with smart-phone based apps that clients can use on their own. This approach to treating anxiety will be more cost effective and accessible, especially for those with fewer health resources who are less well served by existing interventions done in a traditional behavioral health care setting.
Dr. Sass’s previous research in this area has demonstrated that attentional biases to threat in anxiety can be seen as early as 100-200 milliseconds in event-related potential brain data, and this early attention may maintain unwanted anxiety. She has also shown that changing attention focus can be taught to individuals which can reduce their anxiety level and change brain correlates of attentional processing. The CEP and Psychology and (Continued on page 7)