Relational-Cultural Therapy

Judith V. Jordan, PhD, is the director of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute and founding scholar at the Stone Center of Wellesley College. Dr. Jordan is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She and colleagues developed a relational model of human development and clinical practice (relational amp ndash cultural theory) that emphasizes the centrality of relationship in our lives. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, she earned her PhD in clinical psychology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she received special commendation for outstanding academic performance. She was the director of psychology training as well as the director of the women amp rsquo s studies program at McLean Hospital, a Harvard Teaching Hospital. For the past 2 to 3 years she has worked with Jean Baker Miller, Irene Stiver, and Jan Surrey on the development of what has come to be known as relational amp ndash cultural theory. Dr. Jordan has published over 5 original reports, 3 chapters, coauthored three books, and edited or coedited two books. She is the recipient of the Massachusetts Psychology Association amp rsquo s Career Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Advancement of Psychology as a Science and a Profession and was also selected as the Mary Margaret Voorhees Distinguished professor at the Menninger School of Psychiatry and Mental Health Science in the spring of 999. She received the annual psychiatric residents amp rsquo Outstanding Teacher of the Year award at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, and she is listed in Who amp rsquo s Who in America. Dr. Jordan was awarded an honorary Doctor of Human Letters in 2 from New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, with
amp ldquo utmost admiration for her contribution to science and the practice of psychology. amp rdquo In 2 2, she received a Special Award from the Feminist Therapy Institute in recognition of outstanding contributions to the development of feminist psychology. Dr. Jordan received the 2 Distinguished Psychologist Award from the Division of Psychotherapy of the American Psychological Association, which is given to only one psychologist in the United States and Canada each year in recognition of outstanding accomplishments and significant lifetime contributions to the field of psychotherapy. Dr. Jordan is on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session and Journal of Creativity and Mental Health. She has written, lectured, and conducted workshops nationally and internationally on relational amp ndash cultural theory, women amp rsquo s psychological development, gender differences, mothers and daughters, mothers and sons, empathy, mutuality, psychotherapy, shame, connections and disconnections, mutual empathy, marginality, diversity, courage, vulnerability, new models of strength,
competence and connection, women amp rsquo s sexuality, gender issues in the workplace, marginalization, relational practice in the workplace, new models of leadership, traumatic disconnections, good conflict, competition and a relational model of self. Dr. Jordan frequently serves as a resource for researchers and the media on these issues she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show as an expert on the importance of relationships for personal and societal well-being.