Tributes to Michel Hersen's contribution to the field. The Mississippi years (1969-1974).
Putting psychologists inside psychiatry departments created the clinician-researcher model we still use.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Agras (2012) tells the story of Michel Hersen’s five-year stay at the University of Mississippi.
From 1969 to 1974 Hersen placed psychologists inside the psychiatry department.
The paper shows how this mix created the first clinician-researcher teams in a medical school.
What they found
The program trained PhD students to see clients and run studies at the same time.
These teams wrote grants, treated patients, and published side-by-side.
The model later spread to other medical schools and shaped today’s behavior-therapy clinics.
How this fits with other research
Morris (2008) shows the same story in Illinois. Bijou ran a lab that also mixed practice and research during 1965-1975.
Evenhuis (1996) picks up where Hersen left off. That paper lists the same barriers his teams later faced: reactive systems and weak follow-up.
Rodriguez (2025) extends the idea into modern mentoring. It repeats Hersen’s call for cross-discipline coaching but adds today’s need for community care.
Why it matters
You can copy the Hersen playbook in your own clinic. Pair every new BCBA with a research task. Let RBTs collect data that feeds directly into treatment tweaks. Share the results in staff meeting the same week. This keeps practice and science glued together, just like the 1970s Mississippi model that still shapes our field.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The 4 years that Michel Hersen spent at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (1970-1974) are described in this article from the viewpoint of his place in the history of the development of behavior analysis and therapy. The Department of Psychiatry at the University of Mississippi Medical Center became a leader in enhancing the role of psychologists as clinician researchers within psychiatry and applying basic findings from psychology to the bedside. A vigorous research program involving psychology residents and postdoctoral students, and psychology and psychiatry faculty emerged from this integration of science and practice. Many of the faculty members, including Michel Hersen, became leaders in the field of behavior therapy. Much of what was groundbreaking at the time is now commonplace within many medical schools.
Behavior modification, 2012 · doi:10.1177/0145445512443979