News Release

American Psychological Association (APA) 106th Annual Convention To Be Held In San Francisco August 14-18

Meeting Announcement

American Psychological Association

Prevention to be Major Theme WASHINGTON - Psychology's movement away from an exclusive focus on assessing and repairing illness and toward an emphasis on prevention will be an overarching theme of the 106th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. More than 1,100 symposia, paper sessions and poster sessions will be devoted to a wide range of psychological issues from evolutionary perspectives on friendship, kinship and mateship to computer-assisted psychotherapy to how the media cover infidelity to the relationship between the weather and the incidence of property crimes.

APA President Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., has chosen Prevention: Promoting Strength, Resilience and Health in Young People as the major theme for the meeting and will speak about his vision of psychology in the 21st century - a retooled social and behavioral science which studies the positive aspects of life, such as work, love and play, and how to build strength and character in people. Best-selling author (Emotional Intelligence) and psychologist Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., will be the keynote speaker. Sessions will address such issues as the origins of creativity, what psychology can contribute to the nurturing of highly talented children and family-, school- and community-based prevention programs for young people.

Other notable speakers will include psychologist Mary Pipher, Ph.D., author of Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, Ph.D., author/psychologist Jonathan Kellerman, Ph.D., novelist Faye Kellerman and writer-director Michael Crichton, M.D., who will be speaking on "Therapeutic Success and its Problems."

Immediately preceding the APA Annual Convention, the APA will be hosting the 24th International Congress of Applied Psychology at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel and Towers, August 9-14. The international meeting will feature presentations at over 500 sessions on a wide array of topics with presenters from all over the world. As with the APA Convention, media registration for the international meeting is free. However, unlike the APA Convention, there will not be media facilities or staff for the international meeting. For registration materials and other information about the international meeting, contact the APA Public Affairs Office at (202) 336-5700 or public.affairs@apa.org.

Logistics

The press facilities for the convention will be in the Seacliff Room of The Palace Hotel. The press room will open for early on-site media registration on Thursday, August 13 from noon to 4:00 PM and during each day of the convention from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM (except Tuesday, August 18, when it will close at noon). Convention papers will be available as will be working space, telephones, fax machines, phone lines for data transmission and APA staff resources. The press area will also be the site of any news briefings held during the convention.

The deadline for requesting housing at the special convention rates is June 23, 1998. Media representatives should contact the APA Public Affairs Office (public.affairs@apa.org/202-336-5700) for registration and housing forms and/or to be placed on a list to receive the convention program and other convention-related materials.

The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 155,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 50 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 58 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.

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