CSPP Student Profile: Lisa Greenberg

This third year clinical psychology PhD student and mother of two took a rather circuitous route to CSPP. As an undergraduate at Princeton University, Lisa Greenberg studied soviet affairs and politics, and worked in China and Korea before going on to receive a Master’s degree in Russian Studies from Georgetown University. (She’s also fluent in English, Russian and Spanish.) Then, in 1999, her son was diagnosed with autism. “That was the impetus for coming to CSPP. I had just learned about a whole new world in terms of special needs for children and parenting differently.”

Lisa recently completed her first research project on the effect of testing environments and testing children with executive function disorders like ADHD, Autism and Asbergers. “When my son was getting tested, the results were so disparate. It made me want to look at tests of attention in kids who do have attention disorders and those that don’t, in both quiet and distractive settings.”

She completed psychology prerequisite courses at CSU Hayward, where she became involved in research for Professor David Samberg that focused on attachment and its connection with trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and whether underlying attachment problems were predictive of PTSD. She conducted a relatively new protocol called ‘adult attachment protocol' in which subjects told a story based on pictures that were shown to them.

Lisa applied only to CSPP. She was drawn to its reputation and the program’s support of the individual. “I didn’t want a professor telling me what to do. I wanted to have my own ideas and go with those. I wanted that freedom because that’s the way I operate. The program isn’t limiting me in any way.” She also wanted to learn from professors who were active in their field as practicing clinicians and learn from their cases.

“I came in at a different stage in my life then other students here. There’s been a lot of personal growth through theoretical learning and real experience. My husband even says school is benefiting our home life. It’s been learning on a different level.”

Lisa completed her first practicum last year at the Children’s Hospital Center for the Vulnerable Child, where she conducted hands on therapy work and assessment. She worked with children in the foster care system, helping to stabilize the kids as they transition and confront the traumas they’ve experienced. She is currently working at her second practicum at the Family Institute of Pinole.

Lisa greatly enjoyed her assessment class, especially its combination of theory and practice. “It’s a full circle course,” she says. Lisa came to the program with a strong assessment focus and is now learning more about research and how her own research has benefited from the knowledge she gained in her statistics course.

After graduating Lisa plans to work quickly to get licensed, so that she can work with children and families and do assessment work. “I want to give people hope when it comes to understanding their children,” says Lisa. “I want to be able to provide people with that knowledge.”

"With this program, you get out as much as you put in,” says Lisa. “The more you’re engaged the more you get out of it.” Lisa’s commitment to the program recently garnered her the Student Government Association award for “Student most likely to receive teacher of the year” and the Award for Best Poster in the PhD Program Student Research Poster Session.