Enrico Gnaulati

Enrico Gnaulati (born November 20, 1960) is a clinical psychologist and writer who advocates for “restoring humanistic thinking” to mental health practice and policy. Selected works include Back to Normal: Why Ordinary Childhood Behavior is Mistaken for ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder (2013) and Saving Talk Therapy: How Health Insurers, Big Pharma, and Slanted Science are Ruining Good Mental Health Care (2018). 
Many of Gnaulati's works are centered around arguments against over medicalized approaches treating problem behavior in children and adults, and human suffering in general. Within Gnaulati's arguments, he writes about the declining quality of accessible psychotherapy due to social forces such as: evidence-based practice movement, the promotion of psychiatric drugs by the pharmaceutical industry, and the underfunding of mental health care by insurance companies. Gnaulati currently works as an affiliate professor of Psychology at Seattle University, blogger for Mad in America, an international organization aimed at reforming psychiatric care, and advisor to the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN), a global community of mental health professionals dedicated to preserving and promoting in-depth psychotherapy to those in need.
Enrico Gnaulati was born November 20, 1960, in Glasgow, Scotland. He spent his adolescence studying for the Priesthood in the Catholic priesthood at Blairs College, Aberdeen. In 1978, Gnaulati emigrated to the United States where he eventually received a Master of Arts in Psychology from Seattle University and a Master of Science and doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University.
Enrico Gnaulati began his professional career as a lecturer and adjunct professor at California State University, California School of Professional Psychology, and the City College of New York. Gnaulati currently practices as a child, adolescent, adult, and couples therapist. He has been referenced in the media as a spokesperson for parenting and quality mental health care.
Gnaulati is an advisor to the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) and regular blogger for Mad in America, an international organization aimed at reforming psychiatric care.
Many of Gnaulati's works include critiques of evidence-based practice movement in the mental health field. He takes stances against short-term forms of psychotherapy that measures clients’ progress predominantly in terms of symptom reduction. In his scholarly work, Gnaulati incorporates themes surrounding ethical concerns associated with the promotion of standard, evidence-based treatments, "the appropriateness of saturating the field with short-term models of psychotherapy, misleading the public to assume that meaningful and lasting change is so readily achievable and clinical training that does not sufficiently emphasize the importance of building interpersonal skills necessary to engage clients in genuine, empathic ways."
In addition, Gnaulati spends much of his career "creating and supporting works that claim there is a psychotherapy drop-out crisis in the U.S. due to the poor training of mental health professionals and the oversupply of short-term, cognitive-behavioral models of psychotherapy which he contends alienate most people seeking care."
Most recently, Gnaulati has mentioned shifting his attention to existential themes in clinical work with couples, such as aiding the communicative shift from prideful monologue to humble dialogue and helping intimate partners acquire a more lighthearted approach to acknowledging their limitations, which he labels “mirthful acceptance.”
* Emotion-regulating play therapy: Staying with playing.
* Back to Normal: Why Ordinary Childhood Behavior is Mistaken for ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder.
* Saving Talk Therapy: How Health Insurers, Big Pharma, and Slanted Science are Ruining Good Mental Health Care.
* Gnaulati, E. (2013) “That's Not Autism: It's Simply a Brainy, Introverted Boy.” Salon.
* Gnaulati, E. (2014) “The Isla Vista Shooter: This is Not the Autism Spectrum.” The Atlantic.
* Gnaulati, E. (2014) “Why Girls Tend to Get Better Grades Than Boys.” The Atlantic.
* Gnaulati, E., & Alibrando, S. (2018) “College students need better mental health care.” Salon.
* Gnaulati, E. (2019). “The ethics of neglecting clinical relationship and alliance building in trauma-focused treatments.” Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, 21, 104-116.
* Gnaulati, E. (2019). “Potential ethical pitfalls and dilemmas in the promotion and use of American Psychological Association-recommended treatments for post traumatic stress disorder.” Psychotherapy, 56, 374-382.
* Gnaulati, E. (2020). “Supplanting prideful monologue with humble dialogue: A dialogical existential approach to couples therapy.” The Humanistic Psychologist, 1-15.
* Gnaulati, E. (2020). “Fostering mirthful acceptance in couples therapy: An existential viewpoint.” Existential Analysis, 31, 368-378.
* Gnaulati, E., & Shedler, J. (2020) “The tyranny of time: How long does effective therapy really take?” Psychotherapy Networker, 26-52.
Category:Scottish writers
Category:Scottish psychologists
Category:1960 births