Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1948, Lebow earned his BA (1970), MA (1973), and PhD (1974) in psychology from Northwestern University.
These common factors include the therapeutic alliance, setting positive and realistic expectations, and maintaining a family systems perspective.
This approach, described in Treating the Difficult Divorce: A Guide for Therapists (Lebow, 2019), applies an integrative family systems perspective (as opposed to a focus on each parent and the child) to those having significant problems with this life transition.
Research for the Psychotherapist: From Science to Practice, a volume of essays focused on bridging the research–practice gap originally published in 2006 (Evans, 2010; Lebow, 2006) and recently released in its second edition (Lebow & Jenkins, 2018), envisions artful practice as solidly based in and interwoven with the findings from research, the two melding into a unified clinical science.
Lebow has also played an advisory role in the Family Institute's progress research program, participating in the development, evaluation and deployment of the institute's STIC (Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change) system for collecting and feeding back client data to help therapists and clients co-assess and co-plan their therapy (Pinsof et al., 2015).
He has served as Visiting Faculty, Aitia Family Institute, Shanghai, China, and Distinguished Scholar, Chinese University of Hong Kong.