Paul Miller's thesis has been on a trajectory. First, it was chosen for UMass Boston's Distinguished Masters Thesis Award. That was followed by winning the Distinguished Masters Thesis Award for the UMass five-campus system. On April 23, Miller travelled to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to be presented with the 1998-99 Master's Thesis Award in the area of Social and Behavioral Sciences & Education from the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools (NAGS), an organization of over 100 universities from New England and Mid-Atlantic states.
Miller's winning thesis, "Psychological Distress, Abuse Histories,
and Perpetration in College Males," was remarkable for several
reasons, according to Prof. David Lisak, Miller's advisor in the
Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology. There has long been an
acknowledged link between childhood sexual abuse in males and the
propensity to commit violence later, but most research looked at
incarcerated offenders, who represent a small minority of those
committing personal violence, since most goes unreported.
A chief contribution of Miller's work is that all of his subjects
were outside of the criminal justice system. After a thorough
assessment of psychological symptoms, he found that sexually abused
men who do not report perpetrating violence express more symptoms of
their abuse. Sexually abused men who report perpetrating violence on
others in the relatively recent past express fewer symptoms of their
abuse.
"It was an ambitious project, and Paul accomplished it with great
skill," says Lisak. Miller credits Lisak's work in psychopathology,
male childhood abuse, and the perpetration of violence with inspiring
his thesis topic. He also credits Profs. Michael Milburn and
Castellano Turner who served as second and third readers
respectively, for their valuable feedback on his thesis.
As for Miller, he is keeping his eyes on the ultimate prize -- securing his doctorate, which he hopes to do in Fall of 1999 or early 2000. He hopes to eventually work in a teaching hospital, splitting his time between clinical work and research.