Scott D. Churchill is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Dallas. He is former chair of the department and founding director of the master's program in psychology. He retired in 2023. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association.
Churchill is recognized internationally for his lifelong scholarship in the existential phenomenological method; developing policy in the American Psychological Association, including the passing of a ban on psychologists from participating in torture; human-bonobo communication; second-person perspectivity; and research into empathy.
Churchill obtained a B.S. Biology from Bucknell University in 1972; an M.A. Psychology from Duquesne University in 1974; and a Ph.D. Clinical Psychology from Duquesne University in 1984.
Churchill taught for 42 years (35 years at the University of Dallas) across a wide variety of fields including phenomenological research methodology, depth psychology, projective techniques, primate studies (including human-bonobo communication), film studies, lifespan development, second-person perspectivity, empathy and tropical ecology. His work corroborated across disciplines. He has presented keynotes and invited addresses at professional conferences around the world, including USA, Australia, India, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Italy, and Poland.
He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association; past president of the APA Society for Humanistic Psychology (Division 32); member of the APA Council of Representatives and editor-in-chief of The Humanistic Psychologist. He has served as the representative of the Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology at the APA's Division of Quantitative and Qualitative Research (Div. 5).
Churchill has a strong interest in ethics and served on the American Psychological Association's Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology's (Division 24) Task Force on Ethics, including as president.
From 2013 he worked to reform APA regulations to prevent the organization's members from participating in or otherwise aiding torture. In 2014 Churchill instigated a change in APA policy prohibiting psychologists from involvement in torture: âÂÂThe APA membership has voted to prohibit all psychologists from working at Guantánamo Bay, from the CIA black sites, and any other setting that the UN has declared to be in violation of international law excepting those psychologists who are performing no task other than offering treatment to fellow soldiers."
In 2015 Churchill successfully advocated the expansion of the ban on any involvement by psychologists in national security interrogations conducted by the United States government, including noncoercive interrogations conducted by the Obama administration. This resolution brought the APA in line with the American Medical Association and other large health-related organizations that had similar bans in place.
Churchill research included human-animal relations, animal-assisted therapy, humanâÂÂanimal bonding, animal welfare and animal cognition. Of animals, he said âÂÂAll animals are spiritual beings, âÂÂgifted with soul,â as Aristotle would say.âÂÂ
He has a particular interest in bonobos, and what human-bonobo interaction can reveal about human kinship with others. His experiences communicating with bonobos led Churchill to question the boundaries of human science in the area of intersubjective interaction between species.
Beyond his direct psychological research, Churchill has held roles in many society and cultural institutions, including fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture and senior film and performing arts critic for Irving Community Television Network and at the Dallas International Film Festival
Churchill has served on the editorial boards of: