Laura Seligman, a professor in the Department of Psychological Science at UTRGV, was elected president of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT).
Seligman, whose specialization is clinical child and internalizing disorders in youth, will start her three-year term in November.
“The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies is a multidisciplinary organization committed to the enhancement of health and well-being by advancing the scientific understanding, assessment, prevention, and treatment of human problems through the global application of behavioral, cognitive, and biological evidence-based principles,” according to its website.
She said it is a big honor especially when one considers who has been president of ABCT in the past.
“It’s quite an impressive group so to kind of think of following in the footsteps of those people … who founded the organization, they’re, like, the people I remember reading about when I was an undergrad,” Seligman said. “The more contemporary presidents are people I highly respect. [They] are some of the … brightest people in the field.”
Joseph D. Hovey, a UTRGV professor in the Department of Psychological Science and an ABCT member, said it is rare the president of the organization is not from a big-name school such as Harvard University or University of California at Los Angeles.
“The fact that she’s representing UTRGV and has still become president of the organization, not only speaks to her skills, but I think speaks to the organization’s ability to kind of reach out to everybody in academia,” Hovey said.
Seligman has been a member of ABCT since she was in Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg Virginia.
“I think I joined around 1993, or ’92, and I’ve served the organization in other ways before becoming president,” she said.
Seligman’s first year will be served as president-elect, and the second and third will be as president of the organization. As president-elect, her first year will be spent familiarizing herself with the finances and strategic plans of ABCT, she told The Rider.
Bianca Villalobos, a UTRGV professor in the Department of Psychological Science, and also a member of ABCT, said it is great to have someone from the university who will present some of the issues experienced here to a broader audience.
“She’s been here for a few years now and has gotten a lot of good insight about the needs of this kind of community and can come with that experience and background to propose ways, initiatives in the larger association,” Villalobos said.
Villalobos is also a part of a special interest group within the organization that deals with issues in the Hispanic community. The group focuses on research, treatments and access to those treatments that are specifically targeted to Latinx populations.
“Hispanics are typically underserved,” she said. “When it comes to therapy … we find that it’s harder for them to get access to evidence-based treatments for a lot of different reasons, like language and the availability of evidence-based treatments in their communities.”
Hovey said it is a great opportunity for Seligman to focus on issues dealing with Hispanic mental health, which is relevant to the Rio Grande Valley.
Seligman said she wants to bring new voices into the organization and the psychology field as president.
“If you don’t have people from different perspectives representing different perspectives … in the room doing the work, doing the research or doing the clinical work, then you have blind spots that you don’t know about,” she said.
Seligman added she hopes to help people at an earlier stage in their academic career.
“I think there’s opportunities for undergrads … or even high school students or high school teachers to get involved in the association,” she said.
Seligman said it is an honor and responsibility to help people become familiar with the work that is done in the Valley and to represent the university, students and faculty.
“Making sure that the research … has a purpose and it’s getting to people in the community and to clinicians so that people are actually getting better treatment,” she said.
