Richard M. Balaban, PhD
Clinical Psychologist & Teacher
Richard Balaban is a son, husband, father, grandfather, and clinical psychologist. He taught special education, was the Coordinator of the Children and Youth Service at a community mental health center and has a decades-long private practice.
He has taught in the Psychology Departments at S.U.N.Y. at Buffalo and Indiana University (IU), and in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IU. He has presented at national conferences such as American Psychological Association and American Group Psychotherapy Association. He co-authored The Last Workshop, a novel about the numerous workshops he co-led at Esalen Institute, in Big Sur, California.
Poppa Sol and Me: A Family Alzheimer's Story - This is a story of a father lost to Alzheimer’s. It is a story of a son’s transformation from grief to growth in his on-going effort to have a meaningful relationship with his father. The sadness at the loss of this man includes poignant and funny moments when his sweetness unexpectedly emerged.
Before we knew what was happening with Poppa Sol, before we knew what we were up against, before the diagnosis and the doctors, before the devastation of dementia, before the incontinence, sexual misconduct and outbursts of anger, before the escapes from the adult day care center and the nursing home, he was just my dad.