Jill Paquin Appointed Editor of International Journal of Group Psychotherapy
By: Rebecca MacNair-Semands, Ph.D.
It is fitting that our first female editor appointed to International Journal of Group Psychotherapy (IJGP) has contributed widely to group psychotherapy teaching, training, research, and professional practice. We first came to know Dr. Jill Paquin’s work as a APA division 49 board member. In 2014, while serving on the current Science to Service Task Force of the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA), we invited her to join this work group. Dr. Paquin began her service on the Science to Service Task Force when we were creating new content for the website related to evidence-based practices in groups. She was clearly skilled and passionate around how to translate research findings to the larger practice community, who use the information and implications to better serve group members. She volunteered readily for several projects, always met deadlines, and quickly jumped into the work with vigor. One example of this is that she offered to write the introduction to the entire website series. Also, together with the past AGPA President, Dr. Les Greene, she co-authored the section on group therapy for trauma and PTSD. She then volunteered to work with another author to review and provide editorial feedback on the upcoming AGPA Principles of Group Psychotherapy curriculum.
Dr. Paquin began gaining editorial experience early in her professional career, reviewing for the Journal of Group Dynamics and the Journal of Counseling Psychology, both for over four years prior to an invited to the editorial boards of these journals. Known for their rigor and high impact, this is quite an accomplishment for a young professional. She served as ad-hoc reviewer for both Psychotherapy and The Counseling Psychologist during this time, and also joined the editorial board of the Counselling Psychology Quarterly (CPQ), an international journal. She clearly values rigorous research, emphasizing qualitative and quantitative research with sound methodology. She also has experience with the Consensual Qualitative Research and Grounded Theory qualitative methods.
I value Jill’s ability as a group dynamics scholar, a skilled group psychologist, and a full-time assistant professor. She has done all this work while also raising a family in the midst of numerous duties. In her role at Chatham University she has focused on small group dynamics, the intersection of multicultural competence and evidence-based practice, career experiences of women working in STEM fields, and small group interactions entitled “Intergroup Dialogues.” Her scholarship and training has focused on helping develop the “clinician-researcher” identity as one way to bridge the gap between research and practice (particularly with the special issue she guest-edited for CPQ). She often examines therapeutic factors as well as leader behaviors that affect connections within groups. She was the first person to both study absences and their impact on the therapy group and to examine person-group fit from the I/O lit in group psychotherapy.
Dr. Paquin’s scholarship and expertise in the area of group psychology has been recognized both nationally and internationally. As an invited presenter, she often taught diversity and inclusion symposiums that made an impact on others learning how to effectively teach multicultural material to students in an effective and efficient manner. Integrating multicultural competence/social justice perspectives with therapy practice, including group work, is another strength. Having seen her in action, these programs were not only well received, but also experiential and practical in nature during crucial developmental years in our field. She has been active at the American Psychological Association annual conference, often having multiple presentations since the beginning of her involvement almost 11 years ago. As you can see, Dr. Paquin’s contributions are wide-ranging in her research, teaching/training, editorial, and clinical practice sectors of the group literature.
