PHILIPPA M. COUGHLAN

PHILIPPA M. COUGHLAN, 75, a clinical psychologist who was the founder and for nearly 40 years the director of Wesleyan’s Office of Behavioral Health for Students (OBHS), died Mar. 17, 2011, after a brief illness. A graduate of Boston University, she received a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she worked with Carl Rogers. At Wisconsin, she was a principal in the post-Vatican II transformation of the University Catholic Center. Following an NIMH post-doctoral fellowship at the Wisconsin Psychiatric Institute, she was appointed to the faculty in the University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate school before joining the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine. While there she was invited by Wesleyan to become head of the mental health service. Many generations of students benefited from her professional skills, diligent work, and caring support. She was a pioneer in the field of behavioral health for college students and spent a lifetime making a positive difference in young people’s lives. She held a Diplomate in clinical psychology and was a member of the American Psychological Association, the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology, the Society for Psychotherapy Research, and the Association of Social Psychiatry. For eight years she served as the chair of the Connecticut Board of Mental Health and Addiction Services and as a Governor’s appointee to the Community Mental Health Strategy Board. Her publications were in psychotherapy, instrumentation (process and outcome), mental retardation, and sexual violence. She is survived by her husband Neil and son John, daughter-in-law Karen and grandson Patrick, brother-in-law Paul, sister-in-law Tina, and nieces Nicole and Monica.