Lavita Nadkarni

Associate Professor
Director of Forensic Studies
Ph.D. Adelphi University, 1995

Area of Specialization
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy; psychological assessment; forensic psychological theory and practice; child custody, separation and divorce; treatment of children from non-intact families; grandparents rights; child abuse and neglect; adolescent truancy; psychologist as an expert witness; PTSD, disability and law enforcement assessments

Publication Areas
Entitlement; child custody guidelines, truancy

Kim Gorgens

Clinical Assistant Professor
Ph.D. Southern Illinois University, 1998

Area of Specialization
Issues in Measurement (MAFP, IDP, and Psy.D.), Forensics I (MAFP), Psychology of Criminal Behavior (MAFP), Psychophysiology (Psy.D.), Clinical Neuropsychology (Psy.D.), Health Psychology (Psy.D.) and Introductory Seminar (Psy.D.). Lecturing, consulting and public outreach in the areas of health and biological psychology, disability and research design. Professional and research interests include the inclusion of disability awareness in diversity education; neurobiological models of trauma, criminality and mental illness; currently working on the confirmation of a structural model of the biopsychosocial function of adults with histories of childhood maltreatment. submitted a grant proposal to develop and implement an assistive technology (AT) device, Disability Evacuation and Emergency Preparedness (DEEP). DEEP is an environmentally aware navigational prompting system that is designed to use the microprocessor capacity of AT devices to provide its user a pathway to interior resources or, in an emergency, an accessible route for evacuation; a 2-way means of communication or, if rescue is needed, data about the user's exact location within a structure.

Publication Areas
Programs for pediatric oncology patients, physical therapy and stroke patients, psychopathology and violence.

Lynett Henderson-Metzger

Clinical Assistant Professor
PsyD, University of Denver, 2003
J.D., University of Denver, 1997

Area of Specialization
Forensic psychology, social justice, domestic violence, attachment, systems theory, student training issues and self care; developmental differences; integration between law and psychology.

Publication Areas
Intimate violence and gender; race and congressional redistricting

Michael Karson

Ph.D. University of Michigan, 1978
J.D. Western New England College, 2000

I received my Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan in 1978 and practiced psychology for 25 years before entering academia. While I was in full-time practice, I tried to do as many different things as possible. I conducted psychotherapies privately and also in a community clinic, doing short-term cognitive and systems work with individuals and couples, and open-ended psychoanalytic therapy with adults. Since I am at bottom a behaviorist, I have tried to integrate different theoretical approaches into a cohesive, if idiosyncratic, blend. I also have an industrial practice, largely through a computer program I co-authored that interprets the 16PF to help organizations decide whom to hire or promote. (I have also co-authored a program that interprets the 16PF for clinicians.) My efforts at theory integration are represented by various chapters in my books. My work with the 16PF led to my writing, with 2 co-authors, 16PF Interpretation in Clinical Practice , which has also been published in Spanish, German, and Croatian.

I worked in the child welfare system for two decades, consulting on 10,000 cases and individually evaluating 800 children and 1000 parents. This work led to my writing Patterns of Child Abuse: How Dysfunctional Transactions are Replicated in Individuals, Families, and the Child Welfare System . Currently, I consult with Colorado's child welfare agency and with various counties from time to time. While in practice, I would testify in termination and custody trials fairly regularly. I thought the courtroom was so interesting that I went to law school in midlife. I was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts, but I have never practiced law except to consult with attorneys about examining and cross-examining mental health witnesses.

Teaching graduate students my approach to early memories led to my writing Using Early Memories in Psychotherapy: Roadmaps to Presenting Problems and Treatment Impasses . I describe a step by step method for interpreting memories, which I see as indicating a pattern or schema for understanding the world, a pattern that is often outmoded in some manner that can produce idiosyncratic expectations and psychological symptoms. I advocate using the patient's vocabulary and imagery in therapy, rather than those of some theorist.

Currently, I am exceedingly interested in the way privilege, power and gender dynamics, and categorical approaches to people constrain the vitality of the therapeutic relationship and hinder the discovery of the client and the client's world. I think that for a long time, theater professionals have struggled with the same problems therapists encounter in the effort to create a lively space, to facilitate meaningful human narratives, and to engage and change people, so I wonder what we can learn from them. This has led to my current project, Deadly Therapy: How Rules, Expectations, and Categories Stifle Creativity and How Performance Theory Can Help .

My integrative approach to theory has found a happy home at DU. My colleagues are genuinely interested in psychology and I find that our approach to multiculturalism and individual differences is itself multicultural, so that we don't all have to agree. I think it's exciting for students to hear so many different points of view. I believe it is important for students to be multilingual (in the sense of knowing different theories), so they can select a theory to fit the situation at hand.