Clinical Psychology Commons^™

Treating Family Members: The Effectiveness Of A Family-Oriented Dialectical Behavior Therapy Program, Melissa Lynn Miller

Dissertations (1934 -)

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a severe emotion regulation disorder that, according to the biosocial theory, is developed and maintained through transactions that occur between biologically vulnerable persons and their environment. The family members of persons with BPD may experience many deleterious consequences as a result of their relative's illness, including both objective and subjective forms of burden. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) was originally developed as a comprehensive treatment for persons with BPD, and new programs designed specifically to treat family members are emerging. These programs aim to help family members cope with their own stressors, as well as help …

Spiritual Questioning And Its Impact On The Therapeutic Alliance: A Preliminary Study, Cody Carson

Dissertations (1934 -)

A growing number of studies have found that clients would prefer to discuss spiritual and religious (S/R) concerns in psychotherapy and, notably, see it as an appropriate place to discuss these concerns. Although clients report they would prefer to discuss S/R matters with their therapist, psychologists are reluctant to do so. Lack of training may be a factor in the reluctance of psychologist to discuss spirituality and religion with their clients. In addition to the research on spirituality/religion and psychotherapy, the therapeutic alliance has been proposed as a similar component among all forms of treatment and consistently shown to be …

Freesurfer Vs. Manual Tracing: Detecting Future Cognitive Decline In Healthy Older Adults At-Risk For Alzheimer's Disease, Alissa Butts

Dissertations (1934 -)

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative pathological process that is thought to begin years prior to observable symptom onset. The hippocampus appears to be particularly vulnerable to the underlying brain pathology of AD. Hippocampal volume is a sensitive measure in predicting conversion from mild cognitive impairment to AD, but less is known regarding the use of hippocampal volume in asymptomatic individuals at risk for AD who eventually decline. The inconsistent findings may, in part, be due to the chosen method of hippocampal segmentation. FreeSurfer (FS) and manual tracings (MT) are two common segmentation techniques that have unique costs and benefits. …

An Examination Of The Role Of Neurocognitive Functioning In Illness Management Among Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes, Christopher James Fitzgerald

Dissertations (1934 -)

Children and adolescents living with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) face many challenges in their daily lives due to the extensive care tasks that the illness requires. Adolescence is a period of development in which treatment adherence and metabolic control has been found to greatly decline. Research examining correlates of this decline in self-management has tended to focus on familial and psychosocial variables such as parental involvement and T1DM-related conflict. The period of adolescence is also marked by several changes in the development of the frontal lobes and prefrontal cortex, which are areas of the brain that are central to …

Revising The Body Esteem Scale For The Next Quarter Century, Katherine Frost

Dissertations (1934 -)

Recently, Frost, Franzoi and Oswald (2012) found evidence suggesting that the way individuals evaluate their physical selves, also called body esteem, may have changed over the past quarter century. The findings were particularly strong regarding men's self-evaluations. Because Frost et al.'s (2012) findings focused on the Body Esteem Scale (BES: Franzoi & Shields, 1984), which is a measure that captures dimensions uniquely important to adult self-perception and physical evaluation within a multidimensional and gender-specific framework, one obvious implication of this study is that the BES may need revising in order to remain as current and relevant as possible.

With that …

Neural Correlates Of The Extreme Male Brain Theory In Adolescents With And Without Autism Spectrum Disorders, Audrey Meyer Carson

Dissertations (1934 -)

The Extreme Male Brain (EMB) theory (Baron-Cohen, 2003) is a behavioral theory of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), suggesting that the triad of behavioral impairments in ASD can be conceptualized psychologically as impairment in empathizing, coupled with a superior capacity for systemizing. Despite studies of the behavioral manifestations of this theory, it lacks neurological findings, specifically evidence of less coordinated activity between the left and right hemisphere in ASD (i.e. more lateralized activity). This study attempted to investigate neural correlates of the EMB theory utilizing EEG coherence, an index of neural connectivity, to determine if a more lateralized profile exists in …

Ericka L. Daniels - Distinguishing Between Risk Factors For Aggression Perpetration, And Victimization In Adolescent Dating Relationships, Ericka L. Daniels

Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program 2013

Objective: Aggression in adolescent romantic relationships occurs at a substantial rate and has negative effects on victims. This study will investigate risk factors that may anticipate a person’s role as a victim or perpetrator of aggression in dating relationships. Also, this study will examine whether males or females are more likely to perpetrate or be victimized by dating aggression. Expanding research on relationship aggression is important because TDV can cause significant mental and physical health problems (e.g. distress, physical injuries, and panic attacks). We focused on risk factors in four general categories: family, cognitions, emotions, and alcohol use. Some of …