Marks, Isaac M.

I was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1935, and qualified in medicine there in 1956. I trained as a psychiatrist at the University of London at the Bethlem Maudsley Hospital from 1960 to 1963. I was a founding member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1971 and became a fellow in 1976. I conducted clinical research at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London, and the Bethlem-Maudsley Hospital from 1964 to 2000, becoming honorary consultant psychiatrist there in 1968, and professor of experimental psychopathology there in 1978. In 2000, I became professor emeritus there and senior research investigator at Charing Cross Hospital Campus, Imperial College, University of London, where I established a computerguided self-help clinic. I have been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California; Salmon lecturer and medalist at the New York Academy of Sciences; Sackler Scholar at the Advanced Studies Institute, University of Tel Aviv; consultant to the World Health Organization and the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in the United Kingdom; visiting professor to universities in six continents; chairman of the British Association for Behavioural Psychotherapy; and president of the[Page 366]European Association of Behaviour Therapy. I am on the editorial boards of many professional journals, have won the Starkey Medal and Prize of the Royal Society of Health, and have been on many professional committees. I have published 12 professional books, including Fears, Phobias, and Rituals, which was also translated into Spanish; Living With Fear, which was translated into 10 languages; and Innovations in Mental Health Care Delivery, in addition to 430 scientific papers. My research has included evolutionary influences on human behavior; the origins, features, and treatment of anxiety, phobic, obsessive-compulsive, and sexual disorders; interactions between drugs and behavioral psychotherapy; development of a national nurse therapist training program; community care of serious mental illness; and health care and cost-effectiveness evaluation. I have developed computer aids for the evaluation and delivery of psychiatric treatment, which is now a focus of my research.

Early influences on my research on behavior therapy were Michael Gelder and Jack Rachman, with whom I published research papers (when at the Institute of Psychiatry/Bethlem-Maudsley Hospital in London). My views on the nature of the scientific process that shaped my research were molded by writings of the philosophers of science Karl Jaspers, Carl Hempel, and Thomas Kuhn. My major contributions to the field include identification of the value of exposure as a unifying factor of many forms of anxiety reduction in behavior therapy and showing how exposure therapy could be effective given as self-help. I have shown in a series of studies how behavior therapy of various kinds can be effective when guided by several computer interfaces. Recently, I found that anxiety was reduced reliably by a few nonexposure therapies, as well. I pointed out the considerable uncertainty about the main therapeutic ingredients responsible for the efficacy of treatments for anxiety and depressive disorders, whether these therapies are behavioral, cognitive, interpersonal, or of a problem-solving nature. To facilitate identification of effective ingredients of therapy, I recently started working with a task force of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy and European Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies to evolve a common language of psychotherapy procedures. I have long been active in working toward the most cost-effective ways of delivering effective therapy for anxiety and depressive disorders, given that the majority of sufferers in the community are untreated. My work on computer-aided self-help is an example of this.

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