Behavioral Emergencies

Phillip M. Kleespies, PhD, is a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology and a fellow of APA. He is a clinical psychologist at the VA Boston Healthcare System and an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Kleespies was awarded his PhD in clinical psychology from Clark University in 1971. Upon graduation, he took a position as a clinical psychologist on inpatient psychiatry at the VA Medical Center in Boston. Over the course of his 42 year career at VA Boston, Dr. Kleespies spent 31 years delivering direct clinical services to psychiatric inpatients who had serious mental illness. He also supervised interns in clinical psychology in their work with these patients. For 11 years, he was the director of psychology training for VA Boston. When the opportunity arose for the VA Boston Psychology Service to become involved in evaluating and managing patients in the emergency room (ER) who were seeking or in need of inpatient admission, Dr. Kleespies became a mental health clinician on-call to the ER and developed a training rotation for psychology interns in emergency services. Given what he had learned in developing a training experience in emergency services for psychologists, Dr. Kleespies has edited (and been a contributing author in) two books that he organized as a curriculum for learning a knowledge base in behavioral emergencies. The first was entitled Emergencies in Mental Health Practice: Evaluation and Management (New York: Guilford Press, 1998) and the second was an enhancement of the first book and entitled Behavioral Emergencies: An Evidence-Based Resource for Evaluating and Managing Risk of Suicide, Violence, and Victimization (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2009). Most recently, he has authored a book entitled Decision-Making in Behavioral Emergencies: Acquiring Skill in Evaluating and Managing High Risk Patients (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2014). In addition to publishing these works and numerous articles and book chapters on topics related to behavioral emergencies, Dr. Kleespies initiated and was the founding president of the Section VII (Emergencies and Crises) of APA Division 12 (Society of Clinical Psychology). Dr. Kleespies has remained actively involved in the section as an advisor to the board of directors. With these activities, he has been referred to as a pioneer in the development of behavioral emergencies as an area of clinical practice for psychologists. Although now retired from a full-time staff position, Dr. Kleespies continues to provide part-time direct service evaluating and managing patients at risk in the Urgent Care Clinic at VA Boston where he also continues to provide training for two psychology interns and a post-doctoral fellowship.