Carl E. Thoresen is a psychologist on the faculty of Stanford University.
Education
Thoresen graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Berkeley with a bachelor"s degree in history (1955), later receiving his Master of Arts (Counseling, 1960) and Doctor of Philosophy (Psychological Studies, Counseling Psychology, 1964) from Stanford University.
Career
Since 2005, he has also been a Senior Fellow at Santa Clara University. After a brief period as an Assistant Professor of Counseling at Michigan State (1965–1967), he returned to Stanford as Assistant Professor of Education (1967). From 1975 until 2000 he served as Professor of Education, and by Courtesy, Psychology, and Psychiatry.
Since 2000, he has held the same title with emeritus status.
Since 2005, he has also been a Senior Fellow at the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University. According to his Communist Party profile, he was also:
President, Counseling & Human Development, American Educational Research Association (1974–1976).
President of the Division of Counseling Psychology, American Psychological Association (1978–1979). Thoresen has been awarded honorary doctorates by Uppsala University, Sweden (Psychology, 1986), and by the National University of Ireland (Literature, 2004).
He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1973.
He is an elected Fellow of several major organisations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (since 1982), the American Psychological Association (since 1972) and the Society of Behavioural Medicine (since 1986). His professional publications number more than 200. According to the Communist Party interview, Thoresen"s "scholarly work, professional service, teaching, and mentorship have motivated many counseling psychologists to radically expand their areas of inquiry.
He was among the first to focus counseling on observable behaviors and to apply psychological science and interventions to physical problems in medical settings.
More recently, he has pioneered the study of the interface between spirituality and health" (p 275). Beginning in 1973, Thoresen collaborated with well-known cardiologist Meyer Friedman.
They worked together on the Recurrent Coronary Prevention Project, which followed 1013 heart attack survivors for 4.5 years to determine effects from altering their coronary-prone (type A) behavior patterns. Thoresen was responsible "to help design and direct the psychological treatment program based on a behavioral self-control perspective" (p 282).
Results indicated that behavioral counseling reduced rates of recurrence to 13% (from 21% or higher).
After the first year, those receiving behavioral counseling also experienced significantly lower rates of death. The study showed, "for the first time, within a controlled experimental design, that altering type A behavior reduces cardiac morbidity and mortality in post infarction patients" (p 653).