Daniel-Ovidiu David, PhD
- ADJUNCT PROFESSOR | Population Health Science and Policy
Research Topic:
CancerDaniel David, Ph.D., is the ''Aaron T. Beck'' Professor of clinical cognitive sciences at ''Babeş-Bolyai'' University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, one of the largest and most prestigious academic institutions in Eastern and Central Europe. His research is focused on the role of cognitive mechanisms, both explicit (e.g., autobiographical memory) and implicit (e.g., implicit memory; priming) in generating subjective/emotional, behavioral, and psycho-physiological human responses, more specifically, on the role of (a) rational/functional and irrational/dysfunctional beliefs and (b) response hopes and/or expectancies on various psychological and medical outcomes related to cancer and mental health.
Dr. David is also a member of the Center for Behavioral Oncology here at Mount Sinai, and within the Center, he is a member of the Integrative Behavioral Medicine program. He has worked with this group for nearly two decades, during which time he has collaborated on projects developing and testing a psychological intervention including a Rational-Emotive Behavioral therapy component to help breast cancer patients manage radiotherapy-related fatigue, and on a current NCI-funded program to train psychosocial cancer care providers across the nation in this technique.
Education
PhD, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Dr. David has significantly contributed to the assimilation of cognitive science principles in the clinical field, endorsing a ''scientist-practitioner'' and an ''evidence-based'' approach in psychology in general, and in the clinical field in particular. His more specific contributions are related to the development of the theory and practice of rational-emotive & cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT/REBT) in the context of clinical cognitive neurosciences (basic research), and to studying their relevance (translational and applied research, including development & innovation) in cancer research and the mental health field.
His research results brought Professor David the Aaron T. Beck Award and the Albert Ellis Award of the International Institute for the Advanced Study of Psychotherapy and Applied Mental Health. In 2004 he was appointed guest editor by the Journal of Clinical Psychology to develop a special issue titled: "Cognitive revolution in clinical psychology: Beyond the behavioral approach," presenting the state-of-the-art regarding the impact of the cognitive revolution on the clinical field. As founding editor of the Journal of Cognitive and Behavioral Psychotherapies (abstracted: SSCI/Thomson ISI; SCOPUS; PsycInfo; IBSS and full text: EBSCO; ProQuest), a journal focused on evidence-based practice, he has supported the evidence-based approach in the clinical field. For his merits in research and education, in 2008, he was knighted by the President of Romania (Decree 201 of 17/01/2008) in the National Order of Knights for Merit.
Dr. David current research is focused on the role of cognitive mechanisms, both explicit (e.g., autobiographical memory) and implicit (e.g., implicit memory; priming) in generating subjective/emotional (cognition-emotion relation), behavioral, and psycho-physiological human responses, more specifically, on the role of (a) rational/functional and irrational/dysfunctional beliefs and (b) response hopes and/or expectancies on various psychological and medical outcomes related to cancer and mental health. When clinical trials are used as research instruments the analysis employed is typically multilevel, concerning: (1) outcomes (i.e., efficacy and/or effectiveness); (2) theory/mechanism of change; and (3) economical aspects (e.g., cost-effectiveness, cost-utility). A specific research interest is related to the theory and practice of cognitive hypnosis/hypnotherapy as part of the cognitive neuroscience paradigm.
David D, Szentagotai A, Lupu V, Cosman D. Rational emotive behavior therapy, Cognitive therapy, and Medication in the treatment of major depressive disorder: A randomized clinical trial, posttreatment outcomes, and six/month follow-up. Journal of Clinical Psychology 2008; 64: 728-746.
Montgomery G, Bovbjerg D, Schnur J, David D, Goldfarb A, Welty C, Schechter C, Graff-Yivin J, Tatrow K, Price D, Silverstein J. A randomized clinical trial of a brief hypnosis intervention to control side effects in breast surgery patients. Journal of National Cancer Institute 2007; 99: 1304-1312.
David D, Montgomery GH, Bovbjerg DH. Relations between coping responses and optimism-pessimism in predicting anticipatory psychological distress in surgical breast cancer patients. Personality and Individual Differences 2006; 40: 203-213.
David D, Szentagotai A. Cognition in cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies; toward an intergrative model. Clinical Psychology Review 2006; 26: 284-298.
David D, Montgomery GH, Macavei B, Bovbjerg D. An empirical investigation of Albert Ellis' binary model of distress. Journal of Clinical Psychology 2005; 61: 499-516.
David D, Schnur J, Birk J. Functional and dysfunctional emotions in Ellis' cognitive theory; An empirical analysis. Cognition and Emotion 2006; 18: 869-880.
David D, Montgomery G, Et Al . Discriminatiopn between hopes and expectancies for nonvolitional outcomes. Psychological phenomenon or artefact? . Personality and Individual Differences 2004; 36: 1945-1952.
Montgomery G, David D. Is hoping the same as expecting? Discrimination between hopes and response expectancies for nonvolitioanl outcomes. Personality and Individual Differences 2003; 35: 399-409.
Montgomery GH, David D, Goldfarb AB, Silverstein JH, Weltz CR, Birk JS, Bovbjerg DH. Sources of anticipatory distress among breast surgery patients. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 2003; 26: 153-163.
David D, Brown R. The impact of different directed forgetting instructions on implicit and explicit memory: New evidence from a modified process dissociation procedure. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 2003; 56A: 211-233.