My study of psychology began in February,1965. I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1967, followed by a Master of Arts degree in psychology at Hofstra University in 1969, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in psychology at Hofstra University in 1972. A few months after receiving my New York State license to practice psychology, I attended the 1974 annual convention of the American Psychological Association in New Orleans, Louisiana. While at the convention, I learned of a new organization that was being created and seeking members, the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology. I immediately signed up and have been credentialled continuously with the National Register ever since. I have also concurrently been a continuous member of the APA. Over the past half century, I have devoted my professional life to children, adolescents and families in search of the fulfillment of basic human needs, including feeling safe, feeling loved and thriving on paths towards self-actualization. My work has focused on applying clinical services to several specialized populations, manifested not only through direct evaluation and treatment, but through clinical supervision to staff and students, program development and administration, applied research, promotion of education to the public and within academic institutions, and social advocacy. Information on articles and papers cited may be found on pages 5 through 11 in my resume’.
From the time I completed the doctoral program in psychology at Hofstra University in 1972, among the first dozen graduates in that program’s history, I found myself in positions and situations which commanded leadership roles. Following a three-year internship at Hofstra’s Psychological Evaluation and Research Center, I accepted a position as Associate Psychologist at Brooklyn Developmental Center (BDC), without actually being apprised that I would be expected to create and to direct the center’s Psychology Department. BDC was one of several developmental centers in New York City, created in the aftermath of the highly publicized, scandalous overcrowding and neglectful client care at Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, N.Y. In compliance with the court mandated Willowbrook Consent Decree, I was immediately tasked with heading a screening/evaluation team assigned to identify developmentally disabled clients for transfer to BDC. Thus was established a professional template which guided me throughout the entirety of my career. In each instance, I created a new position for myself as head of a new program or department. By necessity, I was behooved to draw upon leadership qualities, organizational skills, personnel instincts, and innovative capability above and beyond the clinical skills I acquired at Hofstra. I was both helped and hindered by the recurring challenge of forging new positions and programs rather than building on already established structures and the efforts of predecessors.
From 1972 through 1979, I functioned as Chief Psychologist at BDC. My department was responsible for the provision of psychological services to a client population of over 500 profoundly, severely or moderately developmentally disabled youth and young adults. Many of the residents were dysregulated emotionally and behaviorally, but they did not have the capacity to benefit from verbal therapies. This prompted the creation of a special residential unit, the Behavioral Development Unit, organized and run by the psychology department, applying the theories and practices of applied behavioral analysis in all facets of the operation. The success of the unit in reaching clients who, for example, previously required the use of restraints in preventing them from significant self-injury, was recognized within a symposium presented at the meeting of the American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD), (Gries, L. & Friedin, B., 1976). At the same national conference, a paper describing another creative clinical initiative pertaining to the assessment and monitoring of client progress on an individual and group basis was presented. The monitoring tool, the Developmental-Behavioral Progress Matrix, was applicable in charting changes in behavior as well as habilitation level (Bernstein, O., Gries, L., & Mansdorf, I., 1976). Our efforts in successfully treating clients with such severely debilitating behavioral disorders as aggressive biting behavior, social skills deficits, and encopresis were shared with psychologists at meetings of the American Psychological Association in subsequent years, (Gries, L. & Fox, K., 1978; Medetsky, H. & Gries, L., 1979; Gries (Chair), Booth, D., Fox, K., Friedin, B., & Slezak, J., 1979).
Issues and practices in the delivery of center-based psychological services were addressed and disseminated through an article entitled The Roles of the Psychologist in a Developmental Center, published in Professional Psychology (Gries, L., 1978.) By the late 1970’s, however, de-institutionalization became the principle du jour, as programs for community-based services for developmentally disabled as well as for mentally ill clients began to be developed. One of the first community-based group home programs for developmentally disabled in N.Y.C. was established by the Federation of Puerto Rican Organizations (F.P.R.O.) Once again, the task was to create a new program from scratch, developing an organizational structure, recruiting staff and providing direction for all treatment and habilitation efforts. In this instance, the burdens and role of Director of Clinical Services were shared with Dr. Herb Medetsky. A decade long clinical specialization in services to the developmentally disabled came to an end in 1982. Several years earlier, however, I was asked to provide expert testimony for the first time in my career, in a criminal court murder case involving a developmentally delayed defendant. Drawing upon the findings of my doctoral dissertation (Gries, L., 1972, 1973), I testified about the possibility that the defendant may not have comprehended the meaning of portions of the Miranda document, which had implications for the admissibility of his statements to police as evidence.
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D.
2/26/2020
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Parts 2,3, and 4 to follow this spring.
From the time I completed the doctoral program in psychology at Hofstra University in 1972, among the first dozen graduates in that program’s history, I found myself in positions and situations which commanded leadership roles. Following a three-year internship at Hofstra’s Psychological Evaluation and Research Center, I accepted a position as Associate Psychologist at Brooklyn Developmental Center (BDC), without actually being apprised that I would be expected to create and to direct the center’s Psychology Department. BDC was one of several developmental centers in New York City, created in the aftermath of the highly publicized, scandalous overcrowding and neglectful client care at Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, N.Y. In compliance with the court mandated Willowbrook Consent Decree, I was immediately tasked with heading a screening/evaluation team assigned to identify developmentally disabled clients for transfer to BDC. Thus was established a professional template which guided me throughout the entirety of my career. In each instance, I created a new position for myself as head of a new program or department. By necessity, I was behooved to draw upon leadership qualities, organizational skills, personnel instincts, and innovative capability above and beyond the clinical skills I acquired at Hofstra. I was both helped and hindered by the recurring challenge of forging new positions and programs rather than building on already established structures and the efforts of predecessors.
From 1972 through 1979, I functioned as Chief Psychologist at BDC. My department was responsible for the provision of psychological services to a client population of over 500 profoundly, severely or moderately developmentally disabled youth and young adults. Many of the residents were dysregulated emotionally and behaviorally, but they did not have the capacity to benefit from verbal therapies. This prompted the creation of a special residential unit, the Behavioral Development Unit, organized and run by the psychology department, applying the theories and practices of applied behavioral analysis in all facets of the operation. The success of the unit in reaching clients who, for example, previously required the use of restraints in preventing them from significant self-injury, was recognized within a symposium presented at the meeting of the American Association on Mental Deficiency (AAMD), (Gries, L. & Friedin, B., 1976). At the same national conference, a paper describing another creative clinical initiative pertaining to the assessment and monitoring of client progress on an individual and group basis was presented. The monitoring tool, the Developmental-Behavioral Progress Matrix, was applicable in charting changes in behavior as well as habilitation level (Bernstein, O., Gries, L., & Mansdorf, I., 1976). Our efforts in successfully treating clients with such severely debilitating behavioral disorders as aggressive biting behavior, social skills deficits, and encopresis were shared with psychologists at meetings of the American Psychological Association in subsequent years, (Gries, L. & Fox, K., 1978; Medetsky, H. & Gries, L., 1979; Gries (Chair), Booth, D., Fox, K., Friedin, B., & Slezak, J., 1979).
Issues and practices in the delivery of center-based psychological services were addressed and disseminated through an article entitled The Roles of the Psychologist in a Developmental Center, published in Professional Psychology (Gries, L., 1978.) By the late 1970’s, however, de-institutionalization became the principle du jour, as programs for community-based services for developmentally disabled as well as for mentally ill clients began to be developed. One of the first community-based group home programs for developmentally disabled in N.Y.C. was established by the Federation of Puerto Rican Organizations (F.P.R.O.) Once again, the task was to create a new program from scratch, developing an organizational structure, recruiting staff and providing direction for all treatment and habilitation efforts. In this instance, the burdens and role of Director of Clinical Services were shared with Dr. Herb Medetsky. A decade long clinical specialization in services to the developmentally disabled came to an end in 1982. Several years earlier, however, I was asked to provide expert testimony for the first time in my career, in a criminal court murder case involving a developmentally delayed defendant. Drawing upon the findings of my doctoral dissertation (Gries, L., 1972, 1973), I testified about the possibility that the defendant may not have comprehended the meaning of portions of the Miranda document, which had implications for the admissibility of his statements to police as evidence.
Leonard T. Gries, Ph.D.
2/26/2020
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parts 2,3, and 4 to follow this spring.
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