Dean McKay

• 1988 BA Hofstra University Major: Psychology
• 1990 MA Hofstra University Major: Applied Research
• 1993 PhD Hofstra University Major: Clinical & School Psychology

My research is actively carried out through the operations of my research lab, Compulsive, Obsessive, and Anxiety Program (C.O.A.P.). There are a multitude of ongoing research projects I am actively engaged in with graduate students to investigate my research interests outlined in detail below.

A theme that cuts across all my areas of scholarship is how to improve scientifically-informed approaches to psychology, and ways to anticipate potential harm. This includes treatment approaches, policy, and public-facing promotion of the profession. For treatment approaches, my primary area of theoretical expertise is cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Policy matters includes a full gamut of public health relevant policies put forth in professional psychology organizations. And finally, as the profession has become expressly political in orientation, work that includes both politically-driven psychopathology (i.e., fear of cancellation, or Akyró̱no̱phobia) and ideologically-based methods serving as pseudoscientific approaches, has been of central focus in the lab. The specific manifestation politically-driven models of care in the mental and medical health professions has been antisemitism. Accordingly, work on addressing antisemitism has been a clear area of work in the lab. Below are more detailed descriptions of the areas of emphasis in the lab.

Politicization in Mental and Medical Healthcare

Social and political movements have consequences in the treatment room. In the past several years, these political movements have led to increasing numbers of practitioners to engage in political activism in patient-facing settings. While the intention of these political gestures may be ground in the practitioner’s particular political ideology, and thus assumed by them to be in the interest of the general public, it can also be alienating to patients and lead to poorer outcomes, patient frustration, and treatment dropout. Among practitioners, these political movements among colleagues can lead to unwillingness to speak up when policies may have identifiable harms to minoritized groups. Further, due to the dominant political ideology in the professions, this has also resulted in antisemitism in patient-facing settings as well as among colleagues. The aim of this line of research is to quantify how politicization affects patient care in mental and medical healthcare, as well as to assess the impact on collegiality and openness of discourse among practitioners. This line of research is multidisciplinary, including with experts in bioethics, political science, Judaica studies, and cognitive science.

Recent Publications:

McKay, D., Bar-Halpern, M., Kogan, J., Hess, S., Yudell, A. (in press). Decolonial psychology’s blind spot:  From liberation praxis to antisemitism. Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism.

White, E.K., McKay, D., Spence, N., & Feldman, C. (in press). Engaging in ethical activism by healthcare professionals: Ensuring positive impact without alienation. Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism.

McKay, D., White, E.K., & Rom-Rymer, B. (in press). Fundamental epistemic discrimination in the decolonial model: Commentary on Kivell et al. (2025) and the legacy of their predecessors. American Psychologist.

Kaiser, N., Ward, H., & McKay, D. (2026). Antiquated criticisms of CBT treated as novel with a new twist: The dangerous politicization of psychological interventions. Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 44, 8.

McKay, D., & White, E.K. (2025). Philosophical errors and unintended harms in recrafting the foundation of counseling and psychotherapy: Comment on Sue, Neville & Smith (2024). American Psychologist, 80, 964-965.

White, E.K., McKay, D., & McNally, R.J. (2024). REDI, set, caution. American Journal of Bioethics, 24, 37-40.

Pseudoscience in Clinical Practice

Empirically supported treatment, and more broadly evidence-based practice, is based on the accrual of scientific findings to support specific methods of therapy. However, there are also a large number of mass-marketed questionable intervention packages that are not based on sound theory, and lack a clear scientific basis. We have been examining clinical and systemic factors that lead to the attractiveness and adoption of these questionable therapeutic methods.

Recent Publications:

McKay, D., & Coreil, A. (2024). Hypothesis testing of the adoption of pseudoscientific methods. Medical Hypotheses, 182, 111229.

McKay, D. (2023). Anxiety. In S. Hupp & C.S. Maria (Eds.), Pseudoscience in psychotherapy (pp. 36-52). New York: Oxford University Press.

McKay, D. (2023). Obsessions and compulsions. In S. Hupp & C.S. Maria (Eds.), Pseudoscience in psychotherapy (pp. 53-68). New York: Oxford University Press.

Tolin, D.F., McKay, D., Olatunji, B.O., Abramowitz, J.S., & Otto, M.W. (2023). On the importance of identifying mechanisms and active ingredients of psychological treatments. Behaviour Research & Therapy, 170, 104425.

Anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders

Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent in the general population, as is obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD is a complex and heterogeneous psychiatric condition that affects children, adolescents, and adults. It has been associated with a wide range of psychiatric disability and is generally considered difficult to treat, yet responsive to available empirically supported interventions. In generally, I have been interested in the nature and treatment of anxiety and OCD, including maintaining factors, subtypes, complicating factors such as posttraumatic stress, assessment of severity, and general and specific cognitive factors. This has led to consideration of basic reconceptualization of the condition. Presently, there are several models for OCD, but none adequately accounts for the full diversity of the disorder.

Recent Publications:

Abramovitch, A., Abramowitz, J.S., & McKay, D. (in press). Obsessive-compulsive and related disorders: A critical review of the diagnostic class. Clinical Psychology: Science & Practice.

Abramowitz, J.S., Abramovitch, A., McKay, D., & Draffin, A. (2026). Treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder in adults: State of the art and emerging approaches. British Medical Journal, 392, 083443.

Trent, E.S., Lanzillo, E.C., Wiese, A.D., Spencer, S.D., McKay, D., & Storch, E.A. (2025). Potential for harm in the treatment of pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder: Pitfalls and best practices. Research on Child & Adolescent Psychopathology, 53, 729-745.

Bezahler, A., Kuckertz, J.M., McKay, D., Falkenstein, M.J., & Feinstein, B.A. (2024). Emotion regulation and OCD among sexual minority people: Identifying treatment targets. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 101, 102807.

Disgust in Anxiety Disorders

Disgust is an understudied emotion. I have been actively investigating the role of disgust in phobias and contamination fear. Contamination fear is a problem that naturally fits with disgust. Disgust is a ‘communicable’ emotion, in that otherwise neutral objects have the capacity for taking on disgust properties. A common problem among individuals with contamination fear is the notion of objects becoming ‘contaminated’ following incidental contact with items believed to be contaminated as well. Disgust also plays a prominent role in other anxiety disorders and states. Most notably, research has supported a role for disgust in blood-injury-injection phobia, and in insect and small animal phobias. However, as illustrated in a recent edited text (Olatunji & McKay, 2009), disgust has been associated with a wide range of other psychiatric conditions.

Recent Publications:

McKay, D., & Olatunji, B. (editors, in press). The Cambridge Handbook of Disgust: Assessment, Clinical Manifestations, and Treatment. New York: Cambridge University Press.

McKay, D. (in press). Disgust, disgust sensitivity, and contamination-related obsessive-compulsive disorder. In E.A. Storch & A. Guzick (Eds.), Childhood obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. Oxfordshire, UK: Routledge.

Mancusi, L., & McKay, D. (2021). Behavioral avoidance tasks for eliciting disgust and anxiety in contamination fear: An Examination of a test for a combined disgust and fear reaction. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 78, 102366.

• PSYC 6380 - Seminar in Anxiety Disorders
• PSYC 6245 - Cognitive Behavior Therapy
• PSYC 6670 - Psychopharmacology
• PSRU 4370 - Literature and Psychology of Disgust

Rabasco, A., Neimeyer, G., Macura, Z., McKay, D., & Washburn, J. (in press). Aligning values with standards: A comparison of professional values in continuing education standards. Ethics & Behavior.

Rabasco, A., Neimeyer, G., Macura, Z., McKay, D., & Washburn, J. (in press). Aligning values with standards: A comparison of professional values in continuing education standards. Ethics & Behavior.

Bezahler, A., Kuckertz, J.M., McKay, D., Falkenstein, M.J., & Feinstein, B.A. (2024). Emotion regulation and OCD among sexual minority people: Identifying treatment targets. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 101, 102807.

McKay, D., & Coreil, A. (2024). Hypothesis testing of the adoption of pseudoscientific methods. Medical Hypotheses, 182, 111229.

McKay, D., & O’Donahue, W. (2023). Conceptual, psychometric, methodological and value problems in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Introduction to the special section on a critical appraisal of ACT. Behavior Therapy, 54, 929-938.

Rabasco, A., Mariaskin, A., & McKay, D. (2023). Well, that was awkward: When clients develop romantic feelings for therapists. Cognitive & Behavioral Practice, 30, 238-247.

McKay, D. (2023). Anxiety. In S. Hupp & C.S. Maria (Eds.), Pseudoscience in psychotherapy (pp. 36-52). New York: Oxford University Press.

McKay, D. (2023). Obsessions and compulsions. In S. Hupp & C.S. Maria (Eds.), Pseudoscience in psychotherapy (pp. 53-68). New York: Oxford University Press.