The village that helped me face fear: Reflections on the training and early career experiences of the 2014 Donald O. Hebb Award recipient.

Abstract

In June 2014 I had the honour and privilege of receiving the Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Science from the Canadian Psychological Association. Although I was the individual upon whom this award was bestowed, my career contributions to the science of psychology have required the labours of many. In this article I pay homage to the "village" that helped me tackle the complexities of various forms of fear and eventually shape current understanding of chronic and disabling pain and its associations with posttraumatic stress disorder. In the spirit of paying forward some of the wisdom graciously imparted on me by that village, and with hopes that this may in some small way benefit others venturing down the career path of Canadian academic psychology, I reflect on some of the most important learning experiences from childhood and throughout my training and early career. To conclude, I briefly comment on what I perceive to be a bright future for Canadian psychology.