Sean Davis, Ph.D., associate professor at the California School of Professional Psychology's marriage and family therapy program in Sacramento, CA, won the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (JMFT) Best Article of the Year Award, a recognition designed to honor one or two articles each year for their quality, meaningfulness and promise to advance the psychology field. This is the second year in a row an Alliant faculty member has received this designation, with Jason Platt, Ph.D. winning the inaugural 2013 edition. Dr. Davis was recognized with this award along with co-authors Stephen T. Fife, Jason B. Whiting and Kay Bradford for the article "The Therapeutic Pyramid: A Common Factors Synthesis of Techniques, Alliance, and Way of Being."

The purpose of this article is to analyze two specific common factors in the field--the relationship between a healthcare professional and client, and interventions. They propose that the effectiveness of these two common factors depend upon the therapist's "way of being," or their attitude towards people in general. The relationships between these three concepts are discussed, along with implications for training, research and therapy.

The award comes from the JMFT Editorial Council, which accepts only 7% of all submissions.