George Bonanno on Unconventional Research, Being Led by Curiosity, and How to Deal with Setbacks
Release Date: 09/04/2019
Dr. Jackie Persons on Integrating Research into Private Practice and Advancing CBT
Research Matters Podcast
Dr. Jacqueline (Jackie) Persons is a distinguished clinician, researcher, and Clinical Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She served as president of the Association of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies (ABCT) in 1999 and currently works in private practice at the Oakland Cognitive Behavior Therapy Center. With over 35 years of experience, Dr. Persons is recognized globally for her pioneering work in integrating research into private practice, particularly in the areas of case formulation and measurement-based care. In this insightful conversation, we dive into Dr....
info_outline
Patricia Arean, PhD: Effective Strategies for Community Engagement and Digital Innovations in Mental Health Research.
Research Matters Podcast
Dr. Patricia Arean is is the Director of the Division of Services and Intervention Research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), as well as a clinical researcher and former professor at the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. With over 30 years of experience, Dr. Arean has focused her career on increasing access to mental health services for underserved communities. She has led multiple research initiatives, including the UW Alacrity Center, which aims to redesign psychosocial interventions for underserved populations, and the Creative...
info_outline
Tony Biglan, Ph.D., on balancing funding with following your true passions
Research Matters Podcast
Tony Biglan, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist at Oregon Research Institute and Co-Director of the Promise Neighborhood Research Consortium. For the past thirty years, he has conducted research in the development and prevention of child and adolescent problem behavior. He is a former president of the Society for Prevention Research and was a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Prevention.
info_outline
Dean McKay, Ph.D., A.B.B.P. on mental health in academia, getting into grad school, authorship, and personal planning
Research Matters Podcast
Dean McKay, Ph.D., A.B.B.P. is Professor of Psychology at Fordham University where he is a member of the clinical psychology doctoral program. His lab, Compulsive, Obsessive, and Anxiety Program (COAP) provides instruction to undergraduate, masters, and doctorate levels. Dr. McKay’s expertise is in anxiety and obsessive-compulsive behavior, with his current focus being on Covid-19 related stress and anxiety.
info_outline
Steven C. Hayes, PhD, on controversy, his lab culture, and how political organizing can help you in science
Research Matters Podcast
Dr. Hayes is a Nevada Foundation Professor of Psychology in the Behavior Analysis Program at the University of Nevada, Reno. An author of 46 books and nearly 650 scientific articles, he is especially known for his work on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is one of the most widely used and researched new methods of psychological intervention in the last 20 years.
info_outline
Jessica Borelli, Ph.D., on Work/Family Conflict, Gender Roles, and Intervention Research with Diverse Communities
Research Matters Podcast
Jessica Borelli, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychological Science at the University of California, Irvine. She is a clinical psychologist specializing in the field of developmental psychopathology, and her research focuses on the links between close relationships, emotions, health, and development.
info_outline
James Kirby, PhD, and Jeffrey Kim, on incorporating physiological data in psychological research
Research Matters Podcast
James Kirby, Ph.D., is a researcher and senior lecturer at the University of Queensland in Australia, who studies the effects of kindness and compassion. Jeff Kim, a graduate student under Dr. Kirby, joins my discussion with Dr. Kirby on measuring and incorporating physiological data into their research. Today’s conversation is focused on measuring heart rate variability.
info_outline
Bethany Teachman, PhD, and Jeremy Eberle, on embracing an open-science mindset
Research Matters Podcast
My two guests today, Bethany Teachman, Ph.D. and director of the PACT lab at the University of Virginia, and Jeremy Eberle, a 4th-year graduate student in her lab share the steps they’ve taken to embrace the open-science mindset and open-science practices in their lab.
info_outline
Jessica Schleider, PhD, on Open Science and Replicability Practices and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Academia
Research Matters Podcast
Jessica Schleider, PhD, is an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Stony Book University and a graduate of the Clinical Psychology Program at Harvard University. When in graduate school, she learned about open science – not from her courses but from the Twitter-spere and later from The Black Goat Podcast. What she learned was compelling and unsettling and kept her up at night as she thought about the state of scientific research in general and her research in particular.
info_outline
Maria Karekla, PhD, on wearables in research and getting a psychophysiology lab up and running
Research Matters Podcast
Dr. Maria Karekla is an assistant professor at the University of Cyprus where she studies anxiety and cravings and specializes in utilizing psychophysiological measurements in her research. I decided to interview her because she has one of the few labs in the world that has done research comparing consumer grade wearable physiological measurement devices to research grade stationary devices.
info_outlineDr. Bonanno is chair of the department of counseling and clinical psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College. He is a world leader on research around trauma, bereavement, and resilience. His interest in how people cope with difficult events and circumstances has led to studies around grief, trauma, acute medical situations, and other unpleasant events.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
- The rewards and consequences of pursuing controversial questions
- What to do when your work is published...and then ignored
- About the weak basis for many assumptions within psychology
- How to protect your curiosity from being squelched by the day-to-day
- Why it’s especially easy for those young in their careers to stay within the safe realm of the conventional
- Why Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi encouraged him to look for employment with a small school and why you might too
- How to deal with disappointments and setbacks
- How to keep the pragmatic details of work from encroaching on your mental space
Tips from the episode
On how to maintain motivation when doing something unconventional…
- You have to be internally motivated by the questions
- Begin with “What do we know and how do we know it? How solid is the evidence?”
- When you find something counterintuitive and trust your methods, it’s usually easy to stay motivated
- If you believe you’re on the right track, that’s rewarding in itself
- Follow your own interests
On dealing with setbacks and the parts of your job that you don’t enjoy
- Remember that the unusable finding of today might be usable in the future
- Hang in there. Keep pursuing the ideas that motivate you.
- Be creative with the tasks you have. Put your own spin on things. Modify things so they’re more amenable to your goals.
- Be open to failure and admit when something has failed.
Links from the episode: