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| C. Richard Spates, Ph.D., Director |
Laboratory Director
Dr. C. Richard Spates is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Anxiety Disorders
Laboratory. He earned his Ph.D. degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Illinois
Urbana. His clinical interests concern fear, anxiety, depression, and traumatic stress. Dr.
Spates was Director of Clinical Training in Psychology at Western Michigan University
from 1987-2007.
About Our Lab
Our projects include a variety of studies addressing anxiety and depression disorders. Our work concerns the treatment
of specific disorders but as importantly it concerns conceptual issues relevant to the treatment of those disorders, i.e.
mechanisms of action of interventions. We also seek to understand comorbidities between anxiety disorders and co-occurring
conditions, i.e. PTSD /depression and substance abuse. We seek to discover what factors impede otherwise efficacious treatments,
i.e. safety behaviors and their effects on Exposure Therapy. Finally we are interested in the efficacy of contemporary
Behavior Therapies and in their mechanism(s) of action for targeted disorders.
In the past several years we have developed three computer
guided interventions that target depression and PTSD. Product usability, treatment integrity, and initial efficacy studies are either underway or recently
completed for these programs.
Whether you are a current student interested
in the work of our laboratory, or a professional curious about some aspect of our research,we hope you will find the information
on this site useful.
