Heidi M. Levitt, Ph.D.

Heidi M. Levitt, Ph.D. (she/her), is a Professor in the Clinical Psychology program within the Department of Psychology at The University of Massachusetts Boston.  She is Editor for Qualitative Psychology  and has been an Associate Editor for the journals Psychotherapy Research and Qualitative Psychology.   She is a past-president of the Society of Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology (SQIP), section of Division 5 of the American Psychological Association (APA; Quantitative and Qualitative Methods). She chaired the development of the SQIP recommendations for reviewing and designing qualitative research (Levitt et al., 2017).  As well, she chaired the development of the inaugural APA Journal Article Reporting Standards for qualitative, qualitative meta-analytic, and mixed methods research (JARS-Qual; Levitt et al., 2018) and facilitated their integration into the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the APA (APA, 2020).  The APA Manual informs the reporting and reviewing of journal articles and is the central guide for publishing in the social sciences.  These guidelines framed the methodological integrity of qualitative research as based upon the appraisal of methods in relation to the researchers' approaches to inquiry, the participants' characteristics, and the study aims -- innovatively advancing a coherent understanding of a broad range of methodological perspectives in psychology, including critical and constructivist science.   She has written books on qualitative reporting standards and on critical-constructivist grounded theory methods.  

Based on 25+ years of qualitative, participatory, and community-based research, she has developed a cyclical model of gender that is inclusive of LGBTQ+ genders and centers the lived experiences of gender across diverse communities--rather than reducing gender to sets of identities or expressions (see Levitt, 2019a, 2019b & forthcoming book).  As well, she has developed interventions that have been found to help people resolve sexual and gender-related stigma experiences, in collaboration with her colleagues (see LGBTQMentalHealth.com).  Her psychotherapy research has focused on transtheoretical and transdiagnostic processes and outcomes and on the identification of principles to guide responsive clinical practice.  In relation to this work, she serves as a member of the Advisory Steering Committee (ASC) for the Development of Clinical Practice Guidelines of APA that provides guidance for APA task forces developing clinical practice guidelines (e.g., see APA statement on evidentiary basis of guidelines).  

Within the American Psychological Association, she has been awarded Fellow status in four APA Divisions: Division 5 [Quantitative and Qualitative Methods], Division 29 [Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy], Division 32 [Society of Humanistic Psychology], and Division 44 [Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity] in recognition of "outstanding contributions" in these areas.  She has received the Carmi Harari Research Award for Inquiry from the American Psychological Association’s Division 32. In 2020, she received the University of Massachusetts Boston Chancellor’s Award for Distinguished Scholarship as well as the Distinguished Contributions in Qualitative Inquiry Award from APA Division 5, which honors an individual who has had a "distinguished history of scientific contributions within the field of qualitative research methods."  

In addition to her scholarly activities, Dr. Levitt teaches students to conduct emotion-focused therapy and is a licensed psychologist.  She adopts an integrative approach to psychotherapy and intervention development that is rooted in humanistic, constructivist, and feminist-multicultural psychotherapy orientations and draws on psychodynamic conceptualizations and cognitive-behavioral interventions.  Her psychotherapy practice as well as her methodological work has been featured in APA online and continuing education films (1, 2, 3, 4) and in many online webinars and podcasts (see Scientific Policy, Policy, & Media Impact webpage for listing).

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Please see the dropdown sidebar on this website (top left hand corner) for links to webpages about her psychotherapy research and LGBTQ+ research as well as about her scientific, policy and media impact, curriculum vita, publications, invited presentations and workshops, and a webpage for Applicants to the UMB Clinical Psychology Graduate Program. You also can find a listing of her publications on ResearchGate.net.