University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky
Dr. Charles R. Carlson, Ph.D., ABPP, obtained his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Vanderbilt University in 1983 and completed a clinical residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1984. From 1984-1988 he served on the faculty of the Psychology Department at Wheaton College.
Since 1988, he has been a member of the Department of Psychology at the University of Kentucky where he was appointed the Robert H. and Anna B. Culton Professor of Psychology in 2008; he also holds joint appointments in the Colleges of Dentistry and Medicine. He served as chair of the Psychology Department from 2004-2010. He was the Director of the University of Kentucky Doctoral Internship Consortium in Clinical Psychology from its founding in 2011 till 2016 and is currently the Director of Behavioral Medicine and Research at the Orofacial Pain Center in the University’s College of Dentistry.
In 2007 he received the Distinguished Psychologist Award from the Kentucky Psychological Association. Dr. Carlson was named the Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences for 2015-2016 and was also given an Outstanding Teaching Award in the College of Arts and Sciences in 2015. In addition he is a member of the executive team for the University of Kentucky’s Center for Research on Violence Against Women.
Dr Carlson has been awarded the diplomate in clinical health psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology and received the U.S. Navy’s Civism Award for service to the Naval Postgraduate Dental School in Bethesda, MD. His research and clinical interests focus on self-regulation skills training for the management of pain and anxiety disorders with a special emphasis on the management of pain in areas mediated by the trigeminal nerve. Dr. Carlson has also developed a research program examining the role of religious and spiritual issues in underage alcohol use and risk taking.