About Linda

Linda G. Bell was born and raised in Austin, Texas, the older of two daughters. She attended Oberlin College and earned a doctorate in social psychology from Duke University. She is married to sociologist David C. Bell. The Bells served two and half years in the Peace Corps in West Africa (Senegal and Liberia). They have three children.

One of Linda's professional accomplishments is the Family Legacies Research Project, a unique 40-year longitudinal study of families with adolescents in the U.S. and Japan. Starting in 1974 when she was a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, and ending in 2020, the study measured family systems and family relationships across the generations and their effect on individual health. About thirty research articles and two books came out of this research.

Starting in 1976, Linda initiated and, with Cheryl Rampage, developed and directed a nationally accredited training program in family therapy at the University of Houston Clear Lake. The program included two semesters of practicum at the university, then a one-year internship in the community. In 1986 the program was selected as a model program in the state of Texas. In the 30 years Linda was involved with this program, she helped train about 400 master’s level family therapists.

From 1985 to 1987, Linda was a Visiting Researcher at the Japanese National Institute of Mental Health in Ichikawa, Chiba. She provided supervision and training in family therapy to many Japanese therapists through various Japanese clinics, hospitals, and universities at a time when family therapy was just starting to grow as a profession in Japan.

In the 1990s, Linda created groups for experienced therapists focusing on meditation and mindfulness in psychotherapy. Groups lasted 3-6 months. They involved music, meditation, personal family of origin work, discussions of using meditation and mindfulness techniques in therapy, and journaling. Each group included a 3-day meditation retreat. In 2009 she published an article on Mindful Psychotherapy.

Linda and David moved to Indiana in 2006 to teach at IUPUI (Indiana University Perdue University Indianapolis). There she taught family communication and family health classes and also developed the Family Matters Course, a training in family relationships, which was taught to men and women in prison in Indianapolis. She also started a psycho-educational program for women who were keeping their babies in prison with them. She took both marriage and family therapy students and nursing students into the prison with her, leading weekly sessions for seven years.

Throughout her career Linda also had a part time private practice in marital, family, and individual psychotherapy. She continued this work via teletherapy after her retirement from Indiana University.

Linda and David currently live in Oberlin, Ohio.