McCullough has held positions as director of research at the Beth Israel Medical Center's Short-Term Psychotherapy Research Program in New York and director of assessment at the Center for Psychotherapy Research at the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of four books two that teach short-term therapy are Changing Character (1997) and Treating Affect Phobia (2002, with coauthors A. She is on the editorial board of the journal Psychotherapy Research and conducts training seminars in short-term psychotherapy worldwide. She was the 1996 Voorhees Distinguished Professor at the Menninger Clinic and received the 1996 Michael Franz Basch Award from the Silvan Tomkins Institute for her contributions toward the exploration of affect in psychotherapy. Leigh McCullough, PhD, is an associate clinical professor and director of the Psychotherapy Research Program at Harvard Medical School. In this case, the therapist exposes the client to their emotions so that they lose their fear of feelings and begin to experience their emotions naturally and appropriately. In a sense, the approach is a sort of exposure therapy typically used to treat phobias. The approach emphasizes emotions but includes cognitive therapeutic aspects as the therapist leads clients to understand their feelings. Change sense of self and sense of others (Self–other restructuring).Work through emotional defenses (Defense restructuring).The approach follows three primary steps: These maladaptive emotional blocks sometimes lie at the core of clients' presenting problems, so that simply eliciting feelings is often the most direct path toward resolving any therapeutic issues. To do this, they create barriers to feelings so that they do not even begin to experience their emotions. Because people are afraid of their feelings, especially strongly negative feelings, they will avoid them. This form of psychotherapy centers on emotion: The objective of this approach is to help clients to work through any defenses they may have to experiencing their feelings, because ultimately, the fear of feelings-or affect-phobia-underlies most of the work psychotherapists do.

Leigh mccullough affect phobia