Kathryn Basham: Career as a Clinician-Activist

/ InDepth /

BY MEGAN RUBINER ZINN

Kathryn Basham, clinician, educator and leader in military work, is set to retire

As a student at UC Berkeley’s M.S.W. program in the late 1960s, Kathryn Basham had a clinical theory course with Lydia Rappaport on one side of the hall and a social policy course with Ron Dellums on the other. Although no longer literal, this facility in moving between these two sectors of social work has characterized Basham’s career ever since.

“I did not experience this profound divide—either you’re a clinician or you’re a social activist—I was educated to be prepared to do both.” Basham worked as a clinician and educator for 15 years after completing her degree. She held positions working with impoverished and marginalized communities, as well as positions in the Outpatient Departments of Psychiatry at Montreal Children’s Hospital and the George Washington University Medical Center. This juxtaposition of environments gave her an extremely broad understanding of the field and the diverse communities social workers serve.

Kathryn Basham, at her 1990 commencement, is first in line behind faculty members Joan Berzoff and Catherine Nye.

Between 1985 and 1990, Basham completed the Smith SSW Ph.D. program and became a resident faculty member in 1992. Over the course of her SSW tenure, Basham has chaired the Social Work Practice and Human Behavior in the Social Environment sequences and has taught multiple courses in psychological theory and practice in both the M.S.W. and Ph.D. programs. For a decade, she also served as clinical co-director of the Ph.D. program and editor of Smith College Studies in Social Work. Basham has been a prolific writer of peer-reviewed articles and chapters on topics including trauma theories and practice; military social work; ethics and moral injury; and pedagogy and anti-racism, as well as the co-authored text, Transforming the Legacy: Couple Therapy with Survivors of Childhood Trauma. As a professor, Basham has particularly loved mentoring students and watching them develop as practitioner-scholars who synthesize psychodynamic and social theories while implementing the School’s anti-racism efforts.

Basham, in 2007, posing with students (l–r): Debra Rubin, Ph.D. ’07, Ana Barrios, Ph.D. ’07, Chikako Nagai, Ph.D. ’07, Keith Platt, Rose Sullivan, Ph.D. ’09, Joanna Bettman, Ph.D. ’05, Nora Padykula, Ph.D. ’08 and Eunjung Lee, Ph.D. ’08.

Throughout the field of clinical social work, Basham has become well known as a national leader in military social work. After growing up in a family of Veterans, and working with service members as a clinician, she developed an expertise in clinical practice and education focused on the effects of deployment and combat stress on re-integration. As her reputation grew, Basham was invited to serve on three Congressionally mandated research committees with the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Science, investigating strategies to enhance the mental health treatment of military and Veteran families, yielding four co-authored texts. In addition to developing Smith’s military social work elective, Basham worked with the Council for Social Work Education (CSWE) to establish military social work competencies and with the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) to design military social work certifications for practitioners.

Basham presents Jim Drisko with a certificate of appreciation at the 50th anniversary of the doctoral program.

On a local level, Basham also actively participates with the Western Massachusetts Veterans Outreach Group. In recognition of her contributions to the field, Basham received the “Greatest Contribution to Social Work Education” award from the NASW-MA chapter and was honored as a distinguished practitioner with the National Academies of Practice. Although she retired from SSW in June of 2021, Basham plans to continue with her private practice, which she has maintained throughout her tenure at SSW, and pursue her research and advocacy with the local Veteran community. ◆