Jerome Short, Ph.D.
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Director of Clinical Training Associate Professor of Psychology Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444 |
Office: David King 2057 Office Hour: 1 to 2 Mondays |
703-993-1368 (office) 703-993-1359 (fax) |
I am a Clinical-Community Psychologist and my theoretical orientation is integrative and includes interpersonal, emotion-focused, cognitive, and behavioral perspectives. My research focuses on understanding and helping families cope with stressors such as parental divorce. I have developed a preventive intervention for older children and adolescents designed to teach coping skills, enhance self-esteem, and develop assertiveness skills to resist peer pressure. These skills are associated with less anxiety, depression, antisocial behavior, and substance use.
Currently, I am working on the development and evaluation of a psychological fitness program with college students and elderly adults, evaluation of substance abuse prevention, suicide prevention, and HIV prevention at local community mental health centers, and religious coping. I have developed a psychological fitness intervention that teaches people daily cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and interpersonal exercises and have found that these exercises are related to increased life satisfaction, self-esteem, optimism, perceived academic competence, and perceived body image among college students. The exercises are also related to decreased anxiety, depression, and anger. I am planning longitudinal follow-ups, identification of the most effective exercises, and application of the intervention to other populations. I am developing a Psychological Fitness website to describe my intervention.
Some of my research on adolescent substance use was described in a Washington Post article. A recent interview appeared on WUSA-TV-9.
One of my doctoral student advisees, Sarah Hall, is doing a dissertation study focused on coping by mothers of children with cancer. If you are (or have been) a mother with a child between the ages of 0 and 12 who has been treated for cancer in the past five years, I encourage you to do an online survey on Sarah's website.