Welcome to my web pages. Here you will find information about my interests, references, and links to electronic publications. To contact Matthew please email him at

Current Interests

In addition to rehabbing an old house, which is probably more of a personality deficit than an interest, I have a variety of professional interests. I selected the four below to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.

Getting individuals the most effective help

How can computers and software be developed to help clinicians and administrators do their jobs? This is really my over arching interest. I see my activities in this area as a direct extension of my Community Psychology training and orientation. The basic notion is that it is important, indeed critical, to give away the accumulating psychological knowledge to all those who might benefit. This includes clinicians, families, individuals with questions or challenges, administrators, even policy makers. My aim in this area is to support the users not to replace, second guess, or minimize them.

There are numerous, perhaps countless, therapies and modalities available for individuals. Do they all work? Perhaps. Would some be more effective for one individual than for another? Almost certainly. The crux of the matter is to develop the means to decide a priori how best to help any given individual. I have attacked this problem from a variety of different approaches. In C/MIS I focused on providing direct clinical information to case managers to allow them to select the appropriate treatments for their clients. In MR-E, I focused on helping clinicians conceptualize the functional assessment of an individual's behaviors and on recommending functionally appropriate treatments for behavior change. In ISAP the focus shifted to matching individual needs with provider capabilities. Finally, SAMHI On-line provided basic information to individual so they could pursue their own treatment options.

Graphic data analysis

The amount of information available to individuals is staggering. We are swimming in data with little time r energy to available to organize or understand the meaning with in that pool. One of the best ways to organize information and to provide meaning is through graphics. Not the iconic graphics popular on computer screens but data charting and graphics that seeks to explain and elucidate the underlying meaning in the data. Graphics are an important tool because as people we excel in pattern recognition while we fail in our ability to grasp meaning from columns of numbers. Presenting data graphically opens it up to individuals in a way that would not be otherwise possible.

Individuals of interest

Over the years I have worked with individuals experiencing a variety of different difficulties and challenges. These have involved individual with mental health problems, mental retardation and developmental disabilities, and those with substance abuse disorders. I have worked in rural Appalachia and in urban St. Louis. In all those groups I have been impressed by a statement from Harry Stack Sullivan who noted that, "we are all simply much more human than otherwise."