Eshkol Rafaeli

I love this professor! he has inspired me so much to be a clinical psychologist. i took intro to clin psych and abnormal psych with him and he was very easy to listen to. since ab psych is such a big class and it surveys a lot of info it was def not as interesting as intro to clin psych was. however, his passion and dedication to psychology really rubs off on you and the tests are very very fair. in intro to clin psych the class was very small and hard to get into...but the fact that it was small made it possible to have meaningful discussions. he would come into class and act out that he has a certain disorder and then we would have to figure out what it was. we also had to do an ADIS survey on someone for anxiety and write a 5-axes report on the person. i loved this bc i felt like he is the only prof who gave assignments that would be completely relevant in the field.

I really enjoyed this class, both because of the intense nature of our weekly discussions and the gentle but firm guidance of Professor Rafaeli. I went to his office hours quite a few times during the semester, sometimes to talk about the class material and sometimes to discuss the final paper (a 10-15 page proposal for a psych experiment), and found him to be patient and warm. During class, he struck a good balance between shaping the discussion and letting our individual voices come to the fore. My favorite part of the class (aside from the great readings, many penned by him) was the fact that each student served as the discussion leader during one class, so that each week's class seemed fresh and new.

Prof. Rafaeli is a nice enough teacher who keeps this class interesting with tons of class discussion and clinical role playing. His tests were great considering that we could make up our own questions, post them on courseworks, and then expect to see about half of them on the test. However, just like with abnormal, you have to know every detail of the textbook -otherwise, missing those few questions that come from one-liners in the book can really hurt your grade. It is sort of annoying to have to study a huge textbook so hard only to see it come up in about 5 questions on the whole test. If you are willing to do this though, then I would say definately take the class. But beware, he likes to keep class going about 5-10 min. after it is supposed to be over.

Rafaeli lectures may be a bit dry, but his ability to stimulate discussion makes up for it. Although the topic lends itself to interesting theoretical questions, he really encourages participation and debate. There tend to be a lot of weirdos in the class who sometimes dominate the conversation with their incessant need to express every opinion they ever had, but they can be entertaining in their own way. I highly recommend the class for anyone interested in therapy and clinical psych. Rafaeli is enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and presents thought-provoking material. It's certainly possible to do well without coming to class, but Rafaeli and all the entertaining opinionated weirdos make the class entertaining and worth attending.

This is a good class but not a great one. Prof. Rafaeli's lectures are clear, and you can print out the powerpoints afterwards if you want to. The material is interesting, sometimes fascinating, and even reading the textbook is not bad. I think my problem with it is that it is very much a survey class- you learn about a lot of different disorders but do not go very much in depth for any of them. I also already knew a lot of the information presented, partly from common knowledge and partly from personal interest. Rafaeli seems like a very nice guy, doesn't mind answering questions, and includes details from his work as a therapist.

2 midterms, 1 cumulative final, 3 assignments.

A must take for anyone interested in clinical psychology! Yes, his lectures can be a little slow at 9 am and they're pretty much powerpoint based, but he often talks about cases from his clinical experience that are really interesting. A great guy, great prof.

Prof. Rafaeli is a phenomenal professor. He is not the best public speaker, but he makes up for it with a passion for the material. He genuinely wants you to understand the material. He will throw in role plays to get you to fully explore all aspects of abnormal psych. He teaches you how to approach diagnosis, how to ask questions, and how to differentiate one disorder from the other in very memorable ways. If you go to lecture, you will do fine on the exams. He makes things memorable. He throws in questions from the text just to make sure you read along, but what professor doesn't? He is completely receptive to all questions/comments. He is such a nice guy, you can go to him for anything, and he is more than happy to accomodate. All in all, he is amazing, and I loved this class! I will definately take another class with him!

As a psych major who is adept at multiple-choice tests... I adored this class. Mainly because I did not attend it. He posts all lecture notes online and if you read the textbook with lecture notes in hand before the test, it is all very straightforward. Not to mention the "extra credit" assignments that can boost every test grade, so that the max is always 107-8. Awesome. If this class were not consistently at 9am students probably wouldn't skip it as much. But as it is, it doesn't really matter because attending class is not at all a predictor of your final grade if you are capable of teaching yourself in any way.

A lot of reviewers said that Rafaeli's tests focus on the minute details of the textbook. I found that he just focuses on different material than the textbook. If you go to class, understand his lectures and virtually memorize his power point slides you will do fine. Maybe this will help some people study next semester.