Our Thought Leaders
Edmund C. Neuhaus, PhD, ABPP
Founder & President, Atheneum Learning
For two decades, Edmund C. Neuhaus, PhD, ABPP, has designed CBT training curricula and trained hundreds of psychology interns, post-doctoral fellows, psychiatry residents, and graduate students. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology at the Harvard Medical School and former Co-Director of Psychology Training at McLean Hospital. Dr. Neuhaus ran McLean Hospital’s psychology internship program beginning in the mid-1990’s, which became one of the most sought-after clinical psychology training programs in the country. In 2006, this program earned the Association of Psychology Post-Doctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) Award for Excellence with Philip Levendusky, PhD, ABPP, Director of Psychology Training. Many of his trainees have pursued high-level positions in academia and research institutions, in clinical practice, and in teaching hospitals.
Dr. Neuhaus also directed McLean’s Behavioral Health Partial Hospital Program for many years, which treats patients with mood, anxiety, and personality disorders, with an additional specialty program for borderline personality disorder. McLean’s largest adult partial hospital setting, this program has treated more than 6,000 patients in the past decade and focuses on skills training and psycho-education. In his capacity as Director, Dr. Neuhaus designed flexible group therapy protocols that distill the best of evidence-based research to meet the needs of a heterogeneous patient population. He also has developed comprehensive programming for patients with borderline personality disorder with co-morbid mood and anxiety disorders.
Through his scholarly works, and as Principal Investigator in treatment outcome research for short-term partial hospital treatment using CBT, Dr. Neuhaus is disseminating his knowledge and research findings in publications, invited presentations and workshops, and through numerous presentations (posters and symposia) for national conferences, including the annual American Psychological Association (APA) and Association for Behavior and Cognitive Therapy (ABCT), and the Psychiatric Services annual conference sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association . The conceptual foundation of the Flexible CBT Approach first appeared in a paper in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry in 2006 with the first empirical support published in the September, 2007, issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Practice.
Currently, Dr. Neuhaus’ and his research colleagues at McLean are exploring the process of CBT skills acquisition to determine the extent to which skills are mediators of symptom reduction and functional improvement. Early results are promising, indicating that skill acquisition may be an important component of recovery from psychiatric illness.
In addition to training, clinical care, and research, Neuhaus lectures widely on his innovative training and treatment models. He is leading a the first series of intensive workshops in China to train hundreds of Chinese therapists in cognitive behavior therapy. In private practice, he specializes in working with a wide range of patients, including those have had poor treatment outcomes, particularly those with chronic depression, severe anxiety, and borderline personality disorders.
Derived from his work with thousands of patients—in private practice, at McLean Hospital, and at Harvard Medical School—the Flexible CBT Approach has been successfully implemented in both hospital and clinical settings. “I developed this approach because manualized treatment go just so far. I treat numerous patients who don’t fit the mold for manualized protocols. I’ve had the good fortune to work with the most talented people—colleagues, trainees, and students—and an incredibly challenging patient population, all of whom have pushed me to develop the very best conceptual grounding and the most effective treatment approach.” Dr. Neuhaus says. “I founded TRi Behavioral because I wanted to teach the most current, and effective evidence-based treatment approaches in behavioral health to meet the needs of patients and those who treat them.”
Dr. Neuhaus graduated from Middlebury College and earned his MA and PhD in Clinical Psychology from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He received his pre- and post-doctoral psychology training at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He began as a mental health worker at McLean on an inpatient unit, then as part of his doctoral training he became a psychology intern in 1987. He states: “I started at the bottom and learned from the best teachers along the way. While I have worked at McLean for the better part of 20 years, I’ve had numerous positions in a wide range of programs—inpatient, outpatient, partial hospital, residential, administrative, research, and of course teaching.”
McLean is one of the leading private psychiatric hospitals in the country and is the largest psychiatric teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School.
Neuhaus lives with his wife and three children in Lincoln, Massachusetts. He enjoys biking (”as much as I can before work and on weekends”) and skiing (”especially when I can get away to Utah for backcountry powder skiing”).