Two faculty from Antioch University New England have been elected as Fellows in their divisions at the American Psychological Association, a professional honor that is awarded on the basis of outstanding achievements in psychology. Dr. Lorraine Mangione, Professor of Clinical Psychology at AUNE, became a fellow of Division 49, Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy. She shares this honor with her close colleague Dr. Kathi Borden, who was made a fellow of Division 12, the Society of Clinical Psychology.
“I feel honored to be included in this group of accomplished psychologists,” says Dr. Borden. Receiving the honor was “more exciting and surprisingly, more emotional than I had expected. I guess knowing how competitive this can be, I didn’t really expect it.” The criteria for fellowship are high, including not just quantitative evidence of professional accomplishment but also the endorsement of three existing fellows and demonstration of what the APA guidelines call “evidence of unusual and outstanding contribution or performance.”
Dr. Mangione says that for her it was a bit of a surprise to learn of her election to what is a competitive honor. “Quite honestly, I was shocked to get it and more pleased than I had imagined I would feel,” she says. Part of why she’s surprised is “because some of the group publications and presentations I have done have been a bit out of the mainstream.” For instance, she published one paper looking at group psychology through the lens of the music of Bruce Springsteen and another titled “The 1996 Mount Everest tragedy: Contemplation on group process and group dynamics.” These idiosyncratic interests are what makes her most passionate about psychology, but they haven’t always made her feel that she’s in the mainstream. So she hopes that her becoming a fellow will help show “our students and the early career psychologists amongst our graduates…that it is worthwhile to follow one’s passion, which may sound like a cliche, but it can lead to many interesting and unheard of places and to helping the people we serve in many different ways.”
It’s for work in more traditional areas that Dr. Borden believes she was selected for this honor. She has been an APA journal editor (for Professional Psychology: Research and Practice); has been involved with accreditation and consulting at the state, regional, and professional levels; and has served as a founding regional coordinator for APA’s Education Advocacy grassroots network. Beyond APA, she has chaired two doctoral programs and served as president of the National Council of Schools and Programs of Professional Psychology. Dr. Borden also gives back as a New Hampshire Disaster Behavioral Health volunteer. As she says, “It is really the accumulation of service as a clinical psychologist that led to this honor.”
Both Dr. Mangione and Dr. Borden plan to continue being involved in the professional service work of their divisions. For Dr. Mangione, that means contributing to the development of a younger generation of psychologists interested in her sub-field. She does that at Antioch by teaching the group therapy class—and in the broader world by leading workshops, engaging in scholarship, working with professional group organizations, and supervising group therapy. “I think group and that way of understanding people and the world has a way of getting lost but we need it more than ever,” she says. She sees this as especially true today, “given all the underserved and marginalized people in our mental health system as well as the issues of polarization and large group fractionating in our country.”
In becoming fellows, Dr. Borden and Dr. Mangione join their AUNE colleagues Dr. Nancy Ruddy, and Dr. Gargi Roysircar who are also fellows of APA.
