Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy,
Director, Marriage and Family Therapy Program, Individual, Couple, and Family Therapy Clinic
(PhD, University of Minnesota)

Research Interests

Common factors in psychotherapeutic change, common change mechanisms in marriage and family therapy (MFT), the process of supervision in MFT, outcome research in MFT, and progress research in MFT

Contact Information

Fowler House, Room 201
Purdue University
1200 W. State Street
West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-2055

Phone: (765) 494-2952
Fax: (765) 494-0503

E-mail: sprenkled@cfs.purdue.edu

Biography
Recent Publications
Education
Courses Recently Taught
Honors
External Grants
Professional Service

Biography

Doug received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in Family Social Science in 1975, but also took extensive course work in psychology enabling him to be licensed both as a clinical psychologist as well as marriage and family therapist. As part of his doctoral dissertation, he was one of the co-developers (with David Olson and Candyce Russell) of the Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems. Healthy and dysfunctional couple and family functioning remain one of his ongoing lines of clinical interest and research. Doug has the longest tenure of any active faculty member—33 years in the Department. He has had many areas of interest over the years including couple communication, couple sexuality, marriage and family therapy and spirituality, family businesses, progress research, outcome research, and mft research methods. He is the author of over 130 refereed journal articles and book chapters, as well as 10 books. He was twice selected by his major professional organization (The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, AAMFT) to edit the “decade review” of research on the efficacy and effectiveness of marriage and family therapy interventions. (The second is under contract). In the past 10 years he has devoted much of his scholarly attention to common factors in marriage and family therapy interventions, and is the first author of a book on this topic that is under contract with Guilford Press.

Doug’s students have gone on to become a veritable “who’s who” in the profession of marriage and family therapy; with 17 serving or having served as faculty members at AAMFT accredited programs; seven current or former directors of AAMFT accredited programs, and eight winners of the AAMFT Research Award. Twenty-five percent of the current Board of Directors of AAMFT is comprised of Doug’s former advisees.

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Recent Publications

Books
Sprenkle, D.H., & Piercy, F.P. (2005). Research Methods in Family Therapy (2nd ed.).

   New York: Guilford.

Sprenkle, D.H. (Ed.) (2002). Effectiveness research in marriage and family therapy.

   Alexandria, VA.: The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

Refereed Journal Articles
Blow, A.J., Sprenkle, D.H., & Davis, S.D. (2007). Is who delivers the treatment more

   important than the treatment itself: The role of the therapist in common factors.

   Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 33, 298-317.

Sprenkle, D.H., & Blow, A.J. (2007). The role of the therapist as the bridge between

   common factors and therapeutic change: more complex than congruency with a

   world view. Journal of Family Therapy, 29, 109-113.

Morgan, M.M., & Sprenkle, D.H. (2007) Toward a common factors approach to

   supervision. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 33, 1-17.

Zody, Z., Sprenkle, D., MacDermid, S.M., & Schrank, H. (2005) Drawing the line:

   How are boundaries between family and business systems related to their strengths

   and performance? Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 27, 185-206.

Sprenkle, D.H., & Blow, A.J. (2004). Common factors and our sacred models. Journal

   of Marital and Family Therapy, 30, 113-130.

Sori, C.F., & Sprenkle, D.H. (2004). Training family therapists to work with children

   and families: A modified Delphi Study. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 30,

   479-496.

Sprenkle, D.H., & Blow, A.J. (2004). Common factors are not islands-they work

   through models: a response to Sexton, Ridley, and Kleiner. Journal of Marital and

   Family Therapy, 30, 151-158.

Book Chapters
Sprenkle, D.H. (in press). What is responsible for therapeutic change?: Two ways of

   viewing. In D.H. Sprenkle, S.D. Davis, & J. Lebow, Common factors in relational

   therapy. New York: Guilford Press.

Sprenkle, D.H. (in press). Common factors that are unique to relational therapy. In

   D.H. Sprenkle, S.D. Davis, & J. Lebow, Common factors in relational therapy. New

   York: Guilford Press. 

Sprenkle, D. (2005) Systemic assessment. In M. Cierpka, V. Thomas, & D. Sprenkle,

   Family assessment: An integrated approach (pp.211-230). Seattle, WA: Hogrefe

   Publishers.

Sprenkle, D.H., & Piercy, F.P. (2005). Pluralism, diversity, and sophistication in family

   therapy research. In D. H. Sprenkle & F. P. Piercy (Eds.), Research methods in family

   therapy (2nd ed.) (pp.3-18). New York: Guilford.

Lyness, K.P., Walsh, S., & Sprenkle, D.H. (2005). Clinical trials research in family

   therapy. In D.H. Sprenkle & F.P. Piercy (Eds.), Research methods in family

   therapy (2nd ed.) (pp. 297-317). New York: Guilford.

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Education

• Ph.D., 1975, Major: Family Social Science, Minor: Psychology, Advisor: Dr. David Olson, University of Minnesota.
• M.A., 1973, Major: Family Social Science, Minor: Psychology, Advisor: Dr. Richard Hey, University of Minnesota.
• M.Div., 1967, Princeton.
• B.A., 1963, Major: Government, Minor: Economics and History, Wesleyan University (Connecticut).

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Courses Recently Taught

CDFS 676: Professional Writing for Child and Family Educators
CDFS 685A: Seminar in Adult Intervention Research on MFT Enrichment and Therapy
CDFS 669: Practicum in Family Therapy

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Honors

Doug won the Osborne Award, a national award given bi-annually for outstanding teaching in family studies by the National Council on Family Relations. He is the past Editor of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, the largest scholarly family therapy journal in the world. In recognition of lifetime career achievements in his discipline, he was awarded the Significant Contribution to Family Therapy Award from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) for both his scholarly and professional contributions to the field. The professional accomplishment of which is most proud is that AAMFT also awarded Doug its Cumulative Career Contribution to Marriage and Family Therapy Research award at the AAMFT Annual Meeting in 2000. Finally, he won the Training Award (for teaching) from AAMFT in 2002, making him the first person ever to win all three national career achievement awards in his discipline: in service, research, and teaching. He was a plenary speaker at the Annual Meeting of AAMFT in 2001 and again in 2005—one of only several people asked to give two plenary addresses.

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External Grants

Keiley, M., Sprenkle, D.H., & Moon, S.M. (1998). Development of the Purdue affect

regulation scales for the gifted. Ester Katz Rosen Award from the American Psychological Association (APA) ($25, 000).

Lewis, R., Sprenkle, D.H., Piercy, F.P., & Trepper, T. (1984-1990). Family Therapy for Drug Abusing Adolescents. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (N.I.D.A.) ($1,000,000).

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Professional Service

American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
Journal Editor (2000-2007)
Treasurer and Member of the Board of Directors (2008-current)
Commission on Accreditation – Commissioner (1984-1990)
Research Committee (1980-1984)
Chair, accreditation team for numerous site visits
Fellow (elected 1984)

International Family Therapy Association
Board of Directors (1998-2004)
Treasurer and Comptroller (1998-2004)

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