Professional Biography David W. McMillan, Ph.D.
David W. McMillan II was born in 1946. He was raised in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. He was the third and youngest son of H.W. McMillan and Elizabeth Daniel McMillan. His oldest brother Bill died when David was fourteen. His younger sister, Betsy, was born with Downs Syndrome. For most of her life David was her caregiver. She died at age fifty.
In 1964 David graduated from what was then Southwestern at Memphis and now is Rhodes College, as a pre-law history major. He attended one year of law school at Southern Methodist University. He left there to come to Vanderbilt where he completed an undergraduate major in psychology. He completed his masters and Ph.D. at George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University in 1976. His major area paper on Sense of Community became an important theory in the field of community psychology. His dissertation focused on emotions. His master's thesis topic was on Quality of Life.
He completed his training at the Palo Alto, VA a teaching and training hospital for Stanford University. There he worked on the Family Studies Unit. His experience there was with families and couples. When he returned to Nashville after completing his internship requirements, he was appointed to the Peabody faculty as a Kennedy Center Scientist. There he was an ecological psychologist who conducted research on the Quality of Life of Adolescence. This NIMH funded project lasted two years. When that project was completed Dr. McMillan entered private practice as a clinical/community psychologist. He has held an active license to practice psychology in Tennessee since 1977.
In his capacity as a licensed psychologist he helped found the Nashville Family Therapy Consortium and the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute. He co-founded and co-directed Compose, a program for families who were victims of domestic violence, and Park West Eating Disorder Program. He is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Tennessee Psychological Association, the Nashville Area Psychological Association and the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute. He served on the board of the Nashville Psychotherapy Institute for ten years and has served as its chair. He has been the chair of the Colleague Assistance Committee Program for the Tennessee Psychological Association.
He has published several books. Create Your Own Love Story and Emotion Rituals are available on Amazon. Other books can be purchased from our office: Hrumph: Traveling With a Difficult Man Who Doesn't Want to Go, If Romeo and Juliet had Lived: The Stages of Relationship Development, and Raising Your Child to Become an Emotional Master. Also available through the office are therapy manuals written by Dr. McMillan or by Dr. McMillan and his colleagues: Compose: A Treatment program for Anger, CDTP: Clinical Depression Treatment Program and CALMS: Treatment for Anxiety Related Problems. See the Books page for details on how to purchase any of these publications.
There are also articles that Dr. McMillan has written (see directions for how to access them.).
The thing Dr. McMillan is most proud of is his marriage of some twenty years to the Honorable Judge Marietta Shipley.
drdavidm@drdavidmcmillan.com