Michael Basseches, Ph.D

Professor of Psychology
B.A. Swarthmore College (Psychology and Philosophy); Ph.D., Harvard University (Psychology and Social Relations); Clinical Psychology Respecialization Program, Clark University; Clinical Internships, South Shore Mental Health Center and Tufts University Counseling Center.

Specialty Areas

Psychotherapy; psychotherapy integration; late adolescent and adult development; dialectical constructivism

Throughout my career, my research and scholarship has dealt with late adolescent and adult intellectual development, social development, and ego development with emphases on psychotherapy and supervision of psychotherapy, as well as higher education and the workplace, as contexts for late adolescent and adult development. I am currently using a dialectical-constructivist framework to integrate a wide range of approaches to psychotherapy, and to provide a developmental conceptualization of the fundamental processes by which all effective psychotherapy works, regardless of the therapist’s theoretical approach. My forthcoming book, Psychotherapy as a Developmental Process (Routledge), with Michael F. Mascolo provides a set of research methods for tracking and studying these fundamental developmental processes within and across therapy cases. This framework may also be used to understand how psychotherapy becomes stuck and to prevent "theoretical abuse" of clients by psychotherapy practitioners.  Current research interests include (a) case studies of successful and unsuccessful psychotherapy using the methods of developmental analysis (b) clients’ experiences of psychotherapy, (c) therapists’ understandings of the nature of expertise in psychotherapy, and (d) the impact of therapists’ forms of meaning-making on the therapy process. These interrelated lines of research are part of an overall attempt to articulate a comprehensive dialectical-constructivist life-span developmental model of psychotherapy process and psychotherapist training. Draft chapters of the book are available from me on request.

Selected Publications

Basseches, M. (2003). Adult development and the practice of psychotherapy. In J. Demick and C. Andreoletti (Eds.) The handbook of adult development. New York: Plenum Press.

Basseches, M. (1997). A developmental perspective on psychotherapy process, psychotherapists’ expertise, and "meaning-making conflict" within therapeutic relationships: A two-part series. Journal of Adult Development, 4(1), 17-34, and 4 (2), 85-106.

Basseches, M. (1989). Toward a constructive-developmental understanding of the dialectics of individuality and irrationality. In D.A. Kramer, & M. J. Bopp (Eds.), Transformation in clinical and developmental psychology (pp. 188-209). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Basseches, M. (1984). Dialectical thinking and adult development. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.