Faculty Member - Clinical Psychology

Gregory Mumma

Position:

Associate Professor

Education:

Ph.D. in Psychology (Clinical), 1986, The Pennsylvania State University

Licenses:

Clinical Psychologist, State of Texas, 1989-present

Contact:

Phone: (806) 742-3711 ext. 246

Fax: (806) 742-0818

Email: g.mumma@ttu.edu

Professional Service:

Editorial Review Board: Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment

Research Interests:

My research involves the intensive scientific/clinical study of individuals, particularly those with comorbid depression and anxiety, and focuses on developing clinical case formulations and treatment plans within a cognitive-behavioral-interpersonal framework. We use a semi-structured clinical interview assessing issues and events of clinical relevance to the individual along with data from standardized measures to develop a cognitive behavioral case formulation (CBCF). The formulation may include cognitive-behavioral-interpersonal scenarios and idiosyncratic cognitive schema. The former are situation specific prototypical sequences of thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and interpersonal interactions that are distressing to the individual (Mumma & Smith, 2001). The latter involve core beliefs, assumptions, and rules, along with associated automatic thoughts, that are specific to an individual and his or her life context and that may be important in generating and maintaining distress (e.g., Clark & Beck, 1999; J. Beck, 1995; Persons, 1989). The CBCF “fine tunes” the focus of “manualized” cognitive-behavioral therapy (e.g., for depression) or is used to develop an individualized treatment plan for complex or comorbid cases (for which standardized treatments are not available). We are developing methods for scientifically validating CBCFs (e.g., Mumma, 2004; Mumma & Mooney, 2007a, b), an area in which there has been surprising little research despite the importance of the CBCF in cognitive therapy (Beiling & Kuyken, 2003; Mumma, 2011a,b). We also have studies examining the sensitivity and intraindividual psychometric properties of idiographic measusures of distress and thoughts/beliefs. Idiographic measures are tailored and more specific to a particular person’s life situation than standardized measures. Our studies typically involve data collection at multiple points in time, using ecological momentary assessment methods.

Slected Research:

• Mumma, G. H. (2011a). Current issues in case formulation. In P. Sturmey & M. McMurran (Eds.). Forensic case formulation. Wiley UK.
• Mumma, G. H. (2011b). Validity issues in cognitive-behavioral case formulation. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 27 , 29-49. doi: 10.1027/1015-5759/a000054
• Haynes, S. N., Mumma, G. H., & Pinson, C. (2009). Idiographic assessment: Conceptual and psychometric foundations of individualized behavioral assessment. Clinical Psychology Review, 29(2) , 179-191.
• Smith, P. N. & Mumma, G. H. (2008). A multi-wave web-based evaluation of cognitive content specificity for depression, anxiety, and anger. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 32 , 50-65.
• Mumma, G. H. & Mooney, S. R. (2007b). Comparing the validity of alternative cognitive case formulations: A latent variable, multivariate time series approach. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 31 , 451-481.
• Mumma, G. H. & Mooney, S. R. (2007a). Incremental validity of cognitions in a clinical case formulation: An intraindividual test in a case example. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 29 , 17-28.
• Mumma, G. H. (2004). Validation of idiosyncratic cognitive schema in cognitive case formulations: An intraindividual idiographic approach. Psychological Assessment, 16 , 211-230.
• Mumma, G. H. & Smith, J. L. (2001). Cognitive-Behavioral-Interpersonal Scenarios: Interformulator reliability and convergent validity. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 23 , 203-221.
• Mumma, G. H. (1998). Improving cognitive case formulations and treatment planning in clinical practice and research. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly, 12(3 ), 251-274.

Teaching Interests and Activities:

Graduate Courses: I teach the following courses: Psy. 5345: Clinical Research Methods; and Psy. 5002: Advanced Clinical Practicum.

Clinical Interests and Activities:

Assessment and treatment of adults with co-morbid mood and anxiety disorders such as comorbid major depressive episode and obsessive compulsive disorder or panic disorder. I specialize in patients with chronic and severe disorders, many of whom have not responded to standard outpatient pharmacological or psychological treatment, have relapsed, or have been hospitalized. I use intervention compontents from standardized cognitive, behavioral, and/or interpersonal treatments along with theory-based interventions, all of which are integrated into a treatment plan via the cognitive-behavioral case formulation.

Student Research Projects:

Ongoing studies by graduate students in the lab focus on using ecological momentary assessment methods to validate and test cognitive-behavioral case formulations (with K. Katuls; C. Mauer) and on evaluating the intraindividual psychometric properties of idiographic (individually tailored) measures of distress (depression, anxiety, anger) and cognitive schema (with S. Harold; K. Katuls).