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.  Her contributions have advanced standards for and enhanced the methodological understanding of qualitative and mixed methods in the discipline of psychology -- with key contributions to psychotherapy/intervention and sexual/gender minority research.  She has written books on qualitative reporting standards and on critical-constructivist grounded theory methods and has a forthcoming book that presents an LGBTQ+ inclusive empirically-based model of gender.  

• Qualitative and Mixed Methods Scholarship:  She is Editor-in-Chief of Qualitative Psychology  (5-year IF: 11.6) and has been an Associate Editor for the journals Psychotherapy Research and Qualitative Psychology.   Other leadership roles have included being 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). Also, 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 in psychology and other social sciences.  These guidelines framed the methodological integrity across approaches to qualitative research as based upon the adaptation of methods to the researchers' approaches to inquiry, participants' characteristics, and the study aims -- advancing a coherent understanding of a broad range of methodological perspectives in psychology, including critical and constructivist science.  Other contributions include a conceptualization of qualitative generalization (Levitt, 2021), a critical-feminist approach to consensus and intersubjective agreement (Levitt et al., 2021), a methodological justification for positionality and reflexivity reflections (Levitt & Pierorazio, in press), and an approach to integrative mixed methods meta-analysis (Levitt, 2024). As well, she wrote and narrated a freely-accessible APA film called, Recommendations for Reviewing Qualitative Research, to provide guidance for reviewers of APA journals.  

• Psychotherapy Research on Client Experiences and Therapy Process-Outcomes: Her psychotherapy research has focused on transtheoretical and transdiagnostic processes and outcomes (e.g., related to client experiences of agency, therapist responsiveness, the impact of silent processes in therapy) and on the identification of principles to guide in-session clinical practice (e.g., Levitt et al., 2016).  Her work has advanced an understanding of the clients' role in psychotherapy, therapists clinical decision-making processes, and practices of agency-enhancing psychotherapy.  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).  

• LGBTQ+ Research on Interventions for Stigma and the Conceptualization of Gender: Based on 25+ years of qualitative, participatory, and community-focused research, she has developed a empirically-based cyclical meta-theory describing how gender identities develop, are normed, experienced, expressed, and eroticized (Levitt, 2019a, 2019b & upcoming book).  Her work has contributed an LGBTQ+ inclusive understanding of gender that centers the agency of gender diverse people and offers a genealogical understanding of gender communities.  As well, she has developed empirically-supported interventions that that help people to resolve sexual and gender-related stigma experiences, in collaboration with her colleagues (see Levitt et al., 2021).  These interventions have been found to reduce depressive symptoms and event-related stress across studies of LGBTQ+ identities (see LGBTQMentalHealth.com).

Within the American Psychological Association (APA), 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.  In 2026, she was awarded a Distinguished Research Career Award by Society for Psychotherapy Research, recognizing the scientific merit, depth, and enduring impact of a scholar’s research contributions.  She received the Carl Rogers Heritage Award, given to an individual for an outstanding contribution to the theory and practice of humanistic psychology, from APA’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's 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, Prof. Levitt trains therapists to conduct an agency-enhancing approach to emotion-focused therapy that combines feminist-multicultural and humanistic principles.  She is a licensed psychologist.  Her integrative approach to psychotherapy is rooted in humanistic, constructivist, and feminist-multicultural 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.