BOX5-1 Clinical Psychologist Perspective: Kenneth J. Sher, Ph.D.A psychopathologist is a scientist who studies how
mental disorders develop, as well as the causes (etiol-
ogy) of mental disorders. A relatively small, but very
productive, proportion of clinical psychologists who
conduct research call themselves psychopathologists.
Kenneth J. Sher is a prominent psychopathologist
whose research focuses on the etiology and develop-
ment of alcohol use disorders.
Dr. Sher is Curators’Professor of Psychological
Sciences at the University of Missouri–Columbia. He has
well over 200 publications on issues related to alcohol
use disorders, methodology in psychopathology
research, and personality–psychopathology relations.
Dr. Sher has received multiple federal grants to support
his research, and he has received numerous awards
that acknowledge his scientific contributions.
Dr. Sher’s empirical work has evaluated many the-
ories of alcohol use (for example, tension reduction, self-
awareness), as well as factors that influence the devel-
opment of alcohol use disorders in“at-risk”subjects
(biological offspring of fathers diagnosed with alcohol-
ism). Dr. Sher is currently conducting two major pro-
spective studies. One assesses“at-risk”subjects at
regular intervals during their collegiate and young adult
years. For example, one of the studies from this large
project found that children of alcoholics (COAs) reported
a greater number of alcohol and drug problems, stron-
ger alcohol expectancies, greater behavioral undercon-
trol, and lower academic achievement than control
subjects who did not have a family history of alcoholism
(Sher, Walitzer, Wood, & Brent, 1991). Data from the
prospective phase of Dr. Sher’s study have been used to
evaluate a variety of theoretical models for how alcohol
problems and other forms of psychopathology develop
in children of alcoholics (e.g., Jackson & Sher, 2003). The
study has also been extremely informative in estimating
the degree that drinking during the college years is
related to drinking later in adulthood (Bartholow, Sher,
& Krull, 2003). A more recent prospective study has been
examining how individual difference variables like per-
sonality interact with environmental factors in deter-
mining the course of drinking in college. In addition, this
study explores how personality influences the types of
environments that individuals seek out and how, in turn,these environments influence individuals with respect to
future drinking.
Dr. Sher responded to several questions we posed
concerning his background and interests, as well as his
predictions about future trends for clinical psychology
and psychopathology research.What originally got you interested in the field
of clinical psychology?
I’m not really sure. Clinical psychology was the fourth
and final focus of my undergraduate studies. I arrived
at college with an interest in becoming a marine biol-
ogist. If the college had had any relevant courses when
I arrived (it was in the middle of Ohio), I’d probably be
a marine biologist today. After a brief stint as a com-
munications major (focusing on broadcast media),
I became a psychology major. At first, I was interested
in becoming a cognitive psychologist because nothing
seemed as fundamental a question as“What is
thought?”and“How do we think?”However, I found
the cognitive psychology of the time (early 1970s) to be
overly behavioral and philosophically barren (a far cry
from the current state of cognitive science).
My interest in clinical psychology gelled while
working as a research assistant for Mardi Horowitz, an
academic psychiatrist in San Francisco. There, I became
convinced that much can be learned about human
nature from an integrated research program including
clinical studies (which help to describe phenomena),
epidemiological investigations (which serve to establish
the extent and course of phenomena in the popula-
tion), and laboratory research (which can help test
specific hypotheses about underlying mechanisms).
Horowitz told me that going into clinical psychology
“would be the biggest mistake of my life”; he thought
I should go to medical school, and my mother, of
course, agreed. However, I’ve never once regretted my
choice—although having a lab on a marine research
vessel would have been nice too.Describe what activities you are involved in as a clini-
cal psychologist, as well as your areas of expertise.
I am primarily a researcher. I conduct both laboratory
research on individual differences in alcohol effects and132 CHAPTER 5