Lynn G Underwood PhD

I am a facilitator, teacher, researcher, artist and author

            I have a passion for art and love drawing and playing with color. I facilitate an online artists community.

            I was born in Los Angeles, grew up in many places including Germany and Dubuque, Iowa, and have lived in Ireland, England, Switzerland, and 10 years in Belfast during the Troubles. I now live in the woods near the Great Lakes. I have three wonderful daughters and a husband who is a retired college professor who writes detective fiction. My pets are the birds, deer, squirrels, coyotes, ducks, geese, and rabbits that I see out my windows and when walking in the woods.

Contact: lynn[at]lynnunderwood.com

Academic background:

            I hold a PhD in Cancer Epidemiology from Queen’s University in the UK. That followed medical studies at the University of Iowa.

            Past academic positions have included: Professor of Biomedical Humanities at Hiram College, Director of the Center for Literature and Medicine, and teaching appointments in the Department of Epidemiology at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, the Honors College at Western Michigan University, John Carroll University and Queen’s University.

            College courses I have taught have included “Neuroethics” (how does what we know about the brain influence how we see ethical decision-making, and how do we make ethical decisions around the new neural technologies, chemical and electronic), “Perspectives: Art, Science, and Spirituality”, and “Understanding and interpreting Human Studies”

            My cancer research in the 1980’s identified why the skin cancer, malignant melanoma, was so deadly in Northern Ireland, looking at the histopathology and interviewing patients. Then I designed and implemented an intervention of physician education that significantly improved survival when followed up over 10 years.

Academic Publications (click here for a full list of publications)

            I have co-edited books with Oxford University Press and Wiley-Blackwell on topics such as stress and social support, compassionate love, and the role of relationships in mental illness. My articles include publications on the methodology of self-report in the social sciences, quality of life, work on the doctor-patient relationship, a qualitative study of Christian monks, and an article on the complex nature of time in disease.

Reviewing and facilitating the work of others    

            I have consulted on projects for Harvard University, the Cleveland Clinic, the University of Connecticut and a variety of social service organizations, and am a Senior Research Associate at the Inamori International Center for Ethics at Case Western Reserve University. I enjoy doing reviews for various publications and organizations in the areas of ethics, health care and public health, and mental health. Recent reviews have included ones for the Chilean and Canadian governments.

            As a member of the European Research Network on the Human Person, I contributed my work on the Human Person in Dire Circumstances, addressing neurological, psychological and spiritual issues in that context. I was member of a working group on the Stigma of Mental Illness for the National Institute of Mental Health, and one on Behavioral Factors and Health with the National Science Foundation, and a member of the Templeton Advisory Board for many years. While serving as Vice President of an endowed operating foundation, I initiated and developed a research program to support and conduct research on the psychosocial aspects of health, and areas such as stress, social support, pain and suffering, and compassionate love. I was especially interested in bringing together researchers and others despite disciplinary divisions.

            I was elected to membership of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine and was a member of the Advisory Board of the National Center for Rehabilitation Research of the NIH. I was awarded a Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress, and was a part of an interdisciplinary project on the nature of the human person, in Greece. I have co-directed projects with the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health.

The DSES

            I have written a number of publications on a 16-question scale I developed of ordinary experiences, the DSES (see dsescale.org ). That work led me to write a trade press book, Spiritual Connection in Daily Life, based on the DSES which is designed for individuals seeking tools to help them grow spiritually, develop resilience, and communicate with others at a deeper level. The scale has been translated into 40 languages and has been used in over 500 published studies to date, with hundreds of studies ongoing internationally. It measures things such as awe, a sense of gratitude, feeling other-centered love, a sense of connection with the transcendent, and accepting others. It works for those from many religions as well as those not comfortable with religion.

             I have given workshops on how to use the 16 DSES questions to explore one’s own spiritual life and communicate about it with others different from ourselves, help with resiliency, and prevent burnout. I advise people throughout the world who use the DSES in their practice and research and conduct workshops to enable people to communicate who hold different beliefs.