The Portable Mentor: Expert Guide to a Successful Career in Psychology

Written for students and early career psychologists, this book is a professional development handbook with practical guidelines and suggestions for mastering virtually every professional task encountered during the first decade of a career in psychology. Comprehensive in scope, but practical in use, it offers the best possible training from the most successful leaders in psychology, combining the wisdom and mentorship of noted psychology experts into a single source.

Mitchell J. Prinstein, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, previously Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Yale University and an Adjunct Assistant Professor (Research) at Brown Medical School. The emphasis of Dr. Prinstein’s published work in developmental psychopathology examines interpersonal models of internalizing symptoms and health risk behaviors. His research has been funded by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and several private foundations. Apart from his research, Dr. Prinstein has had a long-standing interest in the professional development of psychologists, beginning with his development of a survival guide in graduate school that served as a conceptual blueprint for this volume. As the elected Chair of the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students, Dr. Prinstein has had numerous opportunities to represent graduate student training interests to governance groups in psychology internationally, such as the Psychology Executives Roundtable, APPIC, the APA Board of Educational Affairs, and APA Council of Representatives. Dr. Prinstein was the first student representative to serve as a member of the APA Board of Directors, and he is currently the Chair of the APA ad hoc Committee on Early Career Psychologists. He created and currently is the instructor of a Professional Development Workshop Series offered to doctoral students in psychology at Yale University.

Marcus D. Patterson is currently a doctoral (Ph.D.) candidate at Boston University and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. As a student, Mr. Patterson was a member of the APA Committee on Accreditation and a member of the international Psychology Executives Roundtable. He served on the APA Advocacy Coordinating Team from 1996-1998, and has been an invited attendee at the State Leadership Conference for over five years. Mr. Patterson has also served as a liason to the APA Council of Representatives, the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB), the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP), the Presidential Commission on Education and Training Leading to Licensure and on the APA Education Leadership Conference. He received the President’s award for contribution and service to the profession of psychology from the National Association of Graduate and Professional Students (NAGPS) in 1998. He was the 1997-98 Rosenblum Fellow in Political Advocacy for the Massachusetts Psychological Association (MPA) and founded the MPA Doctoral Student Group. He was Chair of the American Psychological Association’s Graduate Students (APAGS) from 2000-2001 and continues to serve on the APAGS executive committee. Mr. Patterson has written a number of articles and given numbers presentations on training issues impacting students.