Professor
Santa Clara University
Counseling Psychology
500 El Camino Real
140 Loyola Hall
Santa Clara
CAUSA
95053-0201
Email:
dlarson@scu.edu
Biographical Sketch: Professor of Counseling Psychology and Director of the Graduate Health Psychology Emphasis Program at Santa Clara University; Fellow in both the Counseling Psychology and Health Psychology Divisions of the American Psychological Association; recipient of awards for contributions to end-of-life care, including the Kara Pioneer Award and an Award of Excellence from NHPCO; Co-Director of the NIMH-funded Berkeley Hospice National Mental Health Skills Training Project; Senior Editor and a contributing author for Finding Our Way: Living with Dying in America, the Robert Wood Johnson funded national newspaper series that reached 7 million Americans; author of The Helper's Journey: Working With People Facing Grief, Loss, and Life-Threatening Illness and scholarly publications on stress management, grief counseling research and practice, self-concealment and secrets, and transdisciplinary team development that are widely cited, both in the scientific literature and in the popular media; chaired NHO’s First National Conference on Hospice Volunteerism; keynote speaker for more than 25 annual state hospice organization conferences; more than 50 plenary and concurrent presentations at NHO/NHPCO conferences over the past 25 years on a wide variety of topics, including stress management, transdisciplinary team development, communication skills, end-of-life conversations, helper secrets, ethics, and volunteerism; licensed psychologist with 25 years of experience working with grieving and seriously-ill persons.