William Doherty
Director, Citizen Professional Center
Director, Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project
- Arts and Humanities
- Family and social relationships
Introduction
William Doherty, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Family Social Science in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota.
His areas of interests include democratic community building with families, citizen health care, marriage, fatherhood, families dealing with chronic illness, and marriage and couples therapy.
Among his projects are:
Marital First Responders—The goal of this project is to develop assessment tools and evaluate the effectiveness of Marital First Responders training. The purpose of Marital First Responders is to increase the confidence and effectiveness of “natural confidants” (people whom others open up to) in supporting the relationships of people in their social network.
Discernment Counseling—The goal of this project is to evaluate the process and effectiveness of discernment counseling, a clinical approach to working with “mixed agenda” couples where one partner is leaning out of the relationship (considering divorce and ambivalent about couples therapy) and the other is leaning in (wants to preserve the relationship and try couples therapy).