McWelling Todman, Ph.D.

McWelling Todman, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research (NSSR) in New York. He received his B.A. degree from Swarthmore College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social and Political Science. He completed his internship training in the Department of Psychiatry of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital Medical Center, Mount Sinai Services / CHC at Elmhurst. Dr. Todman is the former Executive Director of the Columbia University CSS programs at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. He has served as a technical consultant to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA; as well as its predecessor, ADAMHA), and the chair of numerous independent, ad hoc grant review panels for the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) and the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS). He also has served on the advisory review panel of the NYC governmental unit formerly known as Special Services for Children, and has been an advisor or consultant to the boards and managers of several community-based service organizations. Currently, Dr. Todman is the Director of the Concentration in Mental Health and Substance Abuse in the Department of Psychology at NSSR, and Chair of Undergraduate Studies at Eugene Lang College, NY. He is also a clinical faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Medical Center, NY Dr. Todman’s research focuses on the role of boredom and self-regulation on the course of various psychiatric disorders, including the psychoses and substance misuse. Dr. Todman has lectured widely on the underappreciated utility of boredom as an index of recovery and relapse, and has advanced a theory about the role of boredom in the genesis of Apparently Irrelevant Decisions and repeated exposure to high risk situations. Dr. Todman has also lectured and conducted research in the areas of assessment, treatment /service delivery, substance abuse, psychosis and dually diagnosis, and has supervised over 50 doctoral dissertations. He is the author of a multi-dimensional, experimental measure of state boredom, and is the principal investigator on several ongoing studies involving the effects of trait and state boredom on various clinical outcomes. In collaboration with researchers from the Geriatric Psychiatry and Methadone Maintenance departments of Beth Israel Medical Center, he is a co-investigator on an ongoing study of the cognitive, psychosocial and neuropsychological effects of long-term methadone use/treatment in elderly opioid-dependent individuals. Dr. Todman is licensed as a clinical psychologist in NY and Pennsylvania and a member of the following professional/scientific organizations: New York Academy of Sciences; American Association for the Advance of Science and; American Psychological Society. .