THOUSAND OAKS, CA. The founding father of the psychiatric rehabilitation field will be the first speaker in a new endowed lecture series at California Lutheran University.

Dr. Robert Liberman, a distinguished professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, will present “The Social Brain: How We Can Use It In Health and Disease” at 2:45 p.m. Monday, Feb. 7, in Room 102 of the Swenson Center for Social and Behavioral Sciences.

The free public lecture will be the first in a series established by the estate of Paul and Eleanor Culver of Lake Sherwood in conjunction with the recent opening of the Swenson Center. The endowment will support guest lectures, seminars and undergraduate research opportunities.

Liberman will also present seminars on “Stigma and Criminalization of the Mentally Ill” and “Recovery from Madness” for students in the social sciences who have been selected as Culver Scholars.

A resident of the Conejo Valley for more than 40 years, Liberman was a close friend of Paul Culver. Both were leaders of the Lake Sherwood Community Association.

Liberman, a tireless advocate for providing patients and their families with access to the most effective treatments, has designed novel and successful therapy programs for people with schizophrenia and other disabling mental disorders that have been translated into 24 languages and used on every continent.

At UCLA, where he has been on faculty since 1970, Liberman has conducted research, treated patients and taught undergraduates, graduate students, medical students, psychiatric residents and mental health practitioners from community mental health centers. Psychiatrists and psychologists have come from Europe, South America, Africa and Asia to learn from him.

Closer to home, Liberman led the Oxnard Mental Health Center from 1970 to 1975 and developed and directed the Clinical Research Unit at Camarillo State Hospital from 1970 to 1997.

Liberman, who received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, has written more than 10 books and more than 400 journal articles. The American Psychiatric Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Institutes of Health and many other organizations have honored him for his work. In 2002, the World Health Organization of the United Nations presented him with the Human Rights Award.

The Swenson Center is located at the corner of Faculty Street and Pioneer Avenue on the Thousand Oaks campus. For more information, contact Randy Toland at (805) 493-3015.