New Psychology Chair Champions Collaborative Approach

During his career, Bill Kelleher, PhD, has seen health psychology make a big difference in people’s lives. From wounded soldiers with chronic pain, to advanced Parkinson’s disease patients, to struggling dieters, Dr. Kelleher has witnessed the power of health psychology to create well-being, especially when used in collaboration with other modalities.

“I’ve learned a lot about people’s capacity to deal with stress and major medical concerns. They find a way to get themselves through it.” He says, adding, “I’ve seen people live life in a satisfactory way in spite of the pain -- to keep up with life.”

Dr. Kelleher’s passion for the field is evident when he talks about it, and it’s understandable, considering the adventurous journey that has led him to the top of it. Kelleher’s career has taken him to locations throughout the world, working on innovative projects that advanced the field. He has taken part in new programs for mind-body health management and created many of his own. He has been lucky enough to work in proximity with doctors, physical therapists and medical institutions who understand the importance of a collaborative approach.

This collaborative approach is central to what Dr. Kelleher believes health psychology -- and natural health -- is all about. His decision to come to Bastyr is just one more way he is putting himself on the forefront of that integration.

His career itself has been a collaboration of the right training, good timing and good fortune. After growing up in Long Island, New York, Dr. Kelleher attended the University of Georgia where he earned his PhD in counseling psychology. Armed with his degree, he was ready for his first position as a psychologist. But the position he took was an unusual one for a thoughtful psychology student: It was in the United States military. “I had no prior ties to the military at all,” he explains, “but I liked their response to my internship application best of all…it was very personable and not what I had expected.” Also influencing his decision to take the job was the opportunity to travel. By taking the position, he committed to three years of active duty service.

Those three years turned out to be only the beginning of a 22-year career with the military, which, to his own surprise, led him into the world of health psychology.

His first post was an internship at the largest U.S. military medical center in San Antonio, Texas. He then served as director of a small mental health clinic at Beale Air Force Base in Northern California. As a hopeful new graduate, he tried to become a successful marriage and family therapist. “I wanted to cure all the family problems in the world,” he confesses. But he didn’t feel like he was having much impact on his patients, who mostly came to see him with depression, anxiety and family or marital troubles. “There weren’t good treatment approaches in the 1970s,” he reflects. Still, he did enjoy the autonomy he had there, along with the collegial atmosphere of the clinic.

But soon enough, he wanted to take advantage of those travel benefits, so he asked for a position overseas. Dr. Kelleher and his wife were transferred to Germany for three years, where he pursued postdoctoral training. There, he learned cognitive-behavioral therapy, and found that it was a more satisfying approach to use with clients as well as something he could later teach to students.

In 1980, he returned to the United States for a great opportunity: a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral medicine at the University of Washington in the chronic pain program. This program was considered an innovative model of mind-body pain management. “They did the first real research looking at psychology alongside medicine in the management and rehabilitation of chronic pain,” says Dr. Kelleher. Through a variety of interventions, the program helped patients and their families to live satisfactory lives in spite of chronic pain. While at the university, Dr. Kelleher also spent part of his time in the spinal cord injury unit and also learned to administer biofeedback. Hence, his health psychology career was beginning.

Next he was transferred to Travis Air Force Base in Northern California. There Dr. Kelleher, together with a family practice physician and a physical therapist, set up a chronic pain clinic. The programs they established encompassed exercise, pain management, psychological strategies and family counseling as rehabilitation measures. Soon after establishing those programs, he was sent back to the Air Force Medical Center in San Antonio to begin a pain management program that received worldwide military personnel referrals for care. He established a postdoctoral program similar to the one at University of Washington, training Air Force psychologists in the health psychology specialty. He also organized a base-wide health promotion program for military personnel, retirees and their families. These changes were well received. “Health psychology is now a central part of primary care in the air force,” he says.

In 1994, he had reached the rank of colonel and was being sought for positions that primarily involved sitting behind a desk in Washington, D.C. But since he wanted to continue in his clinical work, he left the military to work at Nova Southeastern University at its Center for Psychological Studies in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. There he directed a clinic for older adults, taught at the university and also coordinated the health psychology program. As part of that job, he organized a support group for Parkinson’s disease patients and their families. What was intended to be an eight-week pilot program evolved into eight years of weekly support sessions, and the group became like a family. “It was the hardest thing for me to leave behind,” he says. “I grew to love those folks.”

In that position, Dr. Kelleher’s career satisfaction peaked, since he was able to bring even more of his personal passions into his work: his love of singing, guitar and banjo. In the Parkinson’s support group, he brought in his guitar, and eventually the group members organized some variety shows and began holding social events on their own. Dr. Kelleher expressed his creativity alongside his desire to help others by writing new health psychology-related lyrics to old songs. For instance, The Beatles’ ballad, “Yesterday,” became “Stressed Today.” And the Eagles’ “Hotel California” became “Hotel for Insomnia.” One of the members who thought her dancing days were over found that she still had a few moves left in her and wrote a poem, “When the Music’s Right, We Can Dance All Night,” about the experience, which Dr. Kelleher put to music.

In deciding to leave that post after 11 years and coming to Bastyr, it was difficult but also exciting. Dr. Kelleher is glad to be at Bastyr, in part because of the university’s integration of psychology with other health-care disciplines. “What I was so excited about when I saw the job posting and interviewed here is that collaboration is built into the fabric of this place. Different health-care disciplines talk to each other, and share the same hallway for offices.”

In addition to having a great psychology faculty to work with, Dr. Kelleher is impressed with the entire curriculum. One major draw for Dr. Kelleher is Bastyr’s new master of science degree in nutrition and clinical health psychology, as he has done some research in the area of psychological/ behavioral interventions in weight loss. Also, he’s glad to be back in Seattle, noting that it was hard to leave the beauty of the area when he left his post at University of Washington. Perhaps his only regret is that, since the 1980s, “There are just a few more cars on the road,” he notes wryly.

As chair of the health psychology department, Dr. Kelleher is in charge of running the Department of Counseling and Health Psychology and teaching counseling classes to naturopathic medicine students as well as other classes to health psychology students. He’s hoping to bring a lot to the department and also enrich his own knowledge of nutrition and natural health. One thing that’s important to Dr. Kelleher in his career is to keep learning.

Although, reflecting back, some of the most important things he has learned in his career have been non-academic. Dr. Kelleher’s career has allowed him to explore the resiliency of the human spirit, and he’s found it inspiring and rewarding to see how people can find ways to keep going. His career has put him in touch with what we all have in common: the journey to invent and reinvent our lives. “Psychology can offer something that complements what the medical field provides,” he says. “I found psychology offering the patient something to help them keep their quality of life and their head held high.”

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