Cole Barton was trained in the APA-approved Clinical Psychology program at the University of Utah. Dr. Barton aspires to a Scientist-Practitioner professional model. He is a licensed practicing clinical psychologist, believing that his clinical work informs his research and teaching.

During his graduate training and for several years thereafter Dr. Barton collaborated with a research group at Utah in developing a systems-behavioral model of family intervention. This model is based in ideas derived from General Systems Theory, characterizing psychological problems as created and maintained within family relationships. The model proposes that a non-blaming behavioral negotiation approach is most effective for treating clinical problems, and has shown that therapists’ skills are important in effective service delivery. This model has recently been compiled and nationally disseminated by the NIMH, NIDA, and OJJDP as an empirically validated model. Dr. Barton has published work validating this model and has trained other mental health professionals in performing it for several years.

He has also studied the impact of child abduction on families. In a project for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, he worked with a group at the University of California- San Francisco interviewing several hundred families of Missing Children across the United States. This work documented the trauma experienced by those families, and resulted in protocols for police officers and mental health professionals to support families of missing children.

In 1988 Dr. Barton received an NIMH-MacArthur fellowship to study Behavioral Medicine with a group of scholars at the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford University. He returned to Davidson College and joined a family medicine training program in a local hospital. He has performed clinical work and trained primary care physicians in psychosocial issues related to medical care. During this time he and his students conducted research with several health care professionals at local hospitals and in outpatient medical clinics. Dr. Barton held an appointment as Director of Clinical Research at a local hospital for several years.

            Believing that clinical research demands sophisticated paradigms and methods, he has written book chapters and articles reviewing clinical research and promoting clinical research methods.

            In 1999 Dr. Barton was given Davidson College’s Hunter-Hamilton Love of Teaching Award. In part, the citation reads “…this professor exhibits a contagious enthusiasm for life, fly-fishing, Texas music, and the practical application of statistics to human behavior.”  

            Currently his clinical research lab team is conducting analogue experiments studying psychophysiological correlates in clinical processes and interpersonal relationships, in addition to coding behavioral processes associated with clinical interventions.