The Illinois Association of Prescribing Psychologists

I first met Steve, just after taking office as President of our Division 55 (the Society for Prescribing Psychology), in January 2004. I was struck by his warm, welcoming smile and twinkling eyes. Almost immediately, he offered to be my adviser and mentor by sitting in my “kitchen cabinet.” Of course, I quickly accepted his offer!

That was the auspicious beginning of our decades-long (and too-short) professional partnership and personal friendship.

Steve began his academic career at the University of Maryland, from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa, with a major in Psychology. He then went on to that most prestigious University, Harvard, and its world-renowned Department of Social Relations, graduating in 1971.  During his prodigious career, he published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and received two Fulbright grants.  From 1976-1977, Steve served as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. From 1985-1986, Steve served as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer at Chiang Mai University, in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

From 1970-1978, Steve was Associate Professor and Director of the Psychological Clinics at SUNY Buffalo. 

From 1978-1999, he was Program Director/Chief Psychologist of Behavioral Medicine at Kaiser Permanente in Hayward, California. In the 1980’s, Steve created the construct of integrated health and, in the Kaiser Health System, implemented programmatic changes aligned with this innovative construct.

Steve will probably best be professionally remembered for his tenure as the first Director of the Postdoctoral Master of Science Program in Clinical Psychopharmacology at Alliant International University. It was, in part, because he lobbied for this Program, that Alliant established the first MS postdoctoral training program in Clinical Psychopharmacology in the U.S. in 1998.  Steve created this position and shaped it from 1999-2015. Steve received his own MSCP in 2002 and received Emeritus status in 2014 from Alliant University. Many hundreds of psychologists have now earned their MSCP from Alliant as the Program continues to move forward, with Alan Lincoln and, now, Judi Steinman, as successive Directors.  Steve, along with Morgan Sammons (then-Dean of Students at CSPP/Alliant) established cohorts for Steve’s training program in Louisiana as well as in many other states and, when he was speaking at an international conference in South Africa in 2010, he reached out to groups of South African psychologists, specifically urging them to become trained and to push for Prescriptive Authority in their country.  

Today, psychologists Joachim Mureriwa and Thabiso Rapapali, having earned their MSCPs at Alliant, are powerfully mobilizing their colleague psychologists in the South African Movement for legislative Prescriptive Authority. In gratitude for Steve’s inspirational, outstanding leadership, Drs. Mureriwa and Rapapali honored Dr. Tulkin, this past November 2021, with an Award of Excellence, from their Association, PASAP, the Pharmacology Association for South African Psychologists.

In 2007, Steve helped to create the APA Division 18/Alliant partnership (to which I contributed 2009-2014) to annually fund 5 Native psychologists’ training in Clinical Psychopharmacology.  This partnership endured several years and facilitated the training of scores of Native clinical psychopharmacologists, as they prepared to earn prescriptive authority for their comprehensive mental health work with tribal communities.

As part of our partnership, Steve and I co-chaired a half-day Program at APA 2010, in San Diego, with prominent Native psychologists and lawyers, talking about the need for greater psychological and legal resources on Native lands. We also coordinated, with members of the Diegueño tribe from San Diego, a beautiful drumming, chanting, and dancing ceremony at the close of our half-day speaking Program.  Many of the working relationships that we established in 2010 continue today.

Throughout his career, Steve was very active with APA, particularly in Division 55 and Division 38 (Division of Health Psychology) and as the Chair of the APA Designation Committee on Postdoctoral Programs in Clinical Psychopharmacology (2014-2019).  He was also very active with Division V (Psychopharmacology) of the California Psychological Association, serving as Treasurer from 2010-2012 and the San Mateo County Psychological Association, serving on its Board since 2014.

Even in this last year, Steve continued, as best he could, his vital work with his patients, and his clinical supervisory work, as adjunct faculty at Stanford. He was helping his patients to heal even as he was finding it so difficult to heal from his own (critical) illness.

We will remember Steve as an innovator, teacher, mentor, APA leader, and astute clinician.  I will always appreciate Steve for his many profound insights, his curiosity, his sharp intellect, his charm, his excitement about our field of Psychology, his generous mentoring of others (including me) and his heartfelt kindness and love for all of us.  We have lost a giant in our Field and I have lost a true and loyal friend.  May his memory be a blessing.