Clinical and Health Psychology
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Laboratory Director
Associate Professor Carol Hulbert+61 03 8326 4774
Research Overview
Our Laboratory brings together a number of staff members who are interested in the phenomenology, classification, etiology, maintenance and outcomes of mental disorders across the entire lifespan. Of particular interest are borderline personality disorder, mental health in older people, early psychosis, at risk for psychosis populations, eating disorders and depressive and anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder and social phobia.We are also interested in factors that promote healthy ageing.
We are focused on the mechanisms underlying the emergence and maintenance of disorders, e.g., genetics, gene-environment interactions, endophenotypes, social cognition, schemas, reasoning biases, meta-cognition and emotional regulation. We also examine the role of comorbidities, stigma, culture, explanatory models, stress, coping, and resilience in affecting the course and outcome of disorders.
We have developed and evaluated new psychological treatments for young people who are at 'ultra' high risk for developing psychosis as well as those with first-episode psychotic disorders, and youth with emerging borderline personality disorder. We are also interested in assessing the relationships between mental and physical health, particularly in hospital and medical settings, and have implemented and tested psychological interventions for patients with medical illnesses (i.e., multiple sclerosis, coronary heart disease, prostate, breast and gynaecologic cancers) and for different ethnic groups.
Collectively, we are focussed on promoting recovery and examining factors that promote quality of life in individuals with mental disorders and/or physical disorders. To this end we are investigating the comparative efficacy and effectiveness of psychological treatments and new modes of treatment delivery, e.g., e-health.
Staff
Associate Professor Lisa Phillips
Dr Isabel Krug
Dr Litza Kiropoulos
Emeritus Professor Henry James Jackson
Associate Professor Carol Hulbert
Associate Professor Christina Bryant