My conceptual frame work and guiding beacon is contained in my main topic, How to Have a Good Life in Bad TimesTM. From the study of thousands of lives in a forty year practice as a clinical psychologist, I have discovered the skills successful survivors use to cope, survive and thrive under adverse circumstances. My focus as a clinician is the study and treatment of loss and trauma survivors. They have revealed specific intra- and interpersonal skills that insure not only survival, but growth and adaptation to choiceless change. In my own life and through my writing and speaking, I share the revealed survivor skills and inspire my audiences to discover their own remarkable adaptability and resilience.

As a two time, cancer survivor and a senior citizen, my frequent contact with the medical professions has thought me the importance of patient satisfaction. In my seminar/webinar Every Patient Contact CountsTM my goal is to raise the awareness of all workers in the medical fields and roles to the enduring impressions and often indelible memories they create in brief contacts with patients. My audiences learn the reality of these encounters as micro relationshipsTM of undeniable importance and they achieve a renewed awareness of the interpersonal importance of their work. Patient satisfaction, compliance, retention are all improved by the interpersonal skills and sensitivity the seminar participants achieve.

My presentation experience includes more than 40 years as a university professor( I am an Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester Hills, MI). My clinical, consulting and speaking practice informed my courses on coping strategies, health and medical psychology and seminars on loss and trauma. For me teaching and practicing created an integrated and complete psychologist.

In whatever sector I worked, I saw that "people problems" always were the most demanding and prevalent. Even in therapy and counseling, individual clients struggle with relationship problems predominantly. In business and in all the professions, personal issues take center stage. One of my contributions to this everlasting human concern is my book "Relationship Pain". When I speak on this topic, I emphasize the role of perception and personality in the experiences we have with others, the complications of polarized dynamics and the importance of involuntarily conditioned responses to each other. My audiences achieve increased awareness of cause and effect factors and identify new skills to help with destructive personalities.

Change, Stress, Psychologists Inspirational, College,