Leslie (Les) Greenberg

About Les: 

Leslie Greenberg, Ph.D., is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Psychology at York University in Toronto. He was originally trained in Person Centered and Gestalt therapy and engaged in psychotherapy research.

Les is one of the originators and primary developers of Emotion-Focused Therapy for individuals and couples.

Languages spoken: 

English (native)

Les is from South Africa. 

Les’s qualifications: 

Greenberg studied engineering and worked as an engineer before earning his Ph.D. in psychology from York University in 1975. With his mentor Laura Rice who had studied with Carl Rogers at the University of Chicago, he began doing psychotherapy process research, attempting to mathematically model therapist–client interactions and using techniques of task analysis. He was also influenced early in his career by Juan Pascual-Leone’s neo-Piagetian constructivist model of mind. His first academic position was at the University of British Columbia in counseling psychology, and he completed an externship at the Mental Research Institute in California in 1981. Initially trained in a client-centered therapy approach, he then trained in Gestalt therapy and over the years was exposed to many other approaches including systemic-interactional, psychodynamic and cognitive therapy.  He returned to York University in 1986 as professor of psychology. 

Les’ s memberships and affiliations:

He is a past President of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. 

He is a President of the Board of the International Society for Emotion Focused Therapy.He is a founding member of the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and a past president of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). He has been on the editorial board of many psychotherapy journals, including the Journal of Clinical PsychologyJournal of Consulting and Clinical PsychologyJournal of Family PsychologyJournal of Marital & Family TherapyJournal of Psychotherapy Integration and Psychotherapy Research.

Les’s awards:

-The Early Career of the International Society for Psychotherapy Research

-The Distinguished Research Career Award of the International Society for Psychotherapy Research

-The Carl Rogers and the Distinguished Professional Contribution to Applied Research of the American Psychology Association. 

-The Canadian Psychological Association Professional Award for distinguished contributions to Psychology as a profession.

Les’s publications

He has authored the major texts on Emotion Focused Therapy from the first books Emotion in Psychotherapy (1986) and Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples (1988) to more recent books include Emotion-focused Couples Therapy: The dynamics of emotion, love and power (2008), Therapeutic Presence (2012), Emotion-focused therapy: Theory and practice (2015), Case Formulation in Emotion-Focused Therapy (2015), Emotion -Focused Therapy of Generalized Anxiety (2017), and Emotion-focused Therapy of Forgiveness (2019) and most recently Emotion Focused Counselling in Action (2021) and Changing Emotion with emotion (2021) and a vast amount of academic articles.

Les has been on the editorial board of many psychotherapy journals, including the Journal of Clinical PsychologyJournal of Consulting and Clinical PsychologyJournal of Family PsychologyJournal of Marital & Family TherapyJournal of Psychotherapy Integration and Psychotherapy Research.

For a more comprehensive list of publications, you can check Greenberg’s comprehensive CV at the York University’s website here.


Les now spends the majority of his time training people in emotion–focused approaches.

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