Prevention
of Emotional Distress Among People Experiencing Life Transitions.
Primary prevention is likely to be most cost-effective when we can
predict with reasonable accuracy who is likely to develop disorder
and when, within a small window of time. This may be easiest to
accomplish for people experiencing dramatic changes in their life
circumstances similar to those experienced by many others before
them. Girls who face increased gender-role limitations as they navigate
the adolescent passage to womanhood, gay and lesbian individuals
who “come out”, immigrants who must learn new languages
and new rules in adapting to cultures dominated by others, people
who learn they have cancer, families that become homeless, aging
adults who become elderly in a society that values productivity
and youth and then face the added burden of having a mental illness,
beginning teachers who find themselves assigned to “tough”
schools, all find themselves subject to new challenges and new standards
that they may not want to, or be able to, meet. To understand, predict,
and possibly prevent the problems experienced by these people, it
is necessary to study the processes through which the life transitions
they undergo threaten them with stigmatized identities that may
lead to emotional disorders. The CCNY/CUNY Prevention Programs have
brought together several scholars who have expertise with populations
experiencing “Life Transitions and Emotional Distress”
who provide training and research experiences that will supply the
knowledge needed to predict and prevent the depression, demoralization,
stress, anxiety, and illness that afflict many members of such populations.
Life
transitions, identity, and affect.
Goals:
To gain an understanding of the processes underlying the development
of identity and affect and the relationship between them. To focus
this knowledge on understanding how a range of stressful life transitions
may place people in circumstances that threaten them with stigmatized
identities and the factors that predispose or protect these people
from developing affective problems.
Training
in the fundamental processes underlying identity and affect and
their connections with the development of disorder will be given
in four courses, including a proseminar on “Life transitions,
identity and affect”.
Cognitive
neuroscience models of identity and affect will be presented by
John Antrobus and Jeffrey
Rosen. Dr. Antrobus, author of the book Cognition and affect,
will teach a course entitled “The Synaptic Self”. Based
upon recent advances in understanding the role played by the limbic
system in cognitive processing, the course will present a cognitive,
neuro-anatomic perspective on the bases of affect and self. In recent
years, Dr. Rosen has been investigating the neuropsychological basis
of the self as mentor of doctoral dissertations such as “Evaluating
autobiographical memory in temporal lobe epilepsy patients”.
He has been studying life transitions in such dissertations as “Journeys
of immigration among young adult Russian Jews”. These perspectives
will be presented in the proseminar and in supervised research opportunities.
In
such works as the book he recently co-authored, Affect regulation,
mentalization, and the development of the self,
Elliot Jurist applies the concepts of psychoanalysis and philosophy
of mind to understanding the child’s development of a sense
of self and the ability to control his/her emotions and their clinical
implications. These perspectives will be presented in the proseminar.
The
social bases of identity are presented in “Identity development
and its consequences”, a course taught by Margaret
Rosario. It focuses on “the unfolding of personal identity
and the individual and social forces that influence identity formation.
It addresses the adaptational and health-related consequences of
identity formation and integration.”
“Complex
cognition and psychopathology” a course taught by Brett
Silverstein, focuses on the relationship between cognitions
of self and others and psychopathology, particularly depression
and anxiety. It introduces students to the roles played in the development
of psychopathology by such concepts as attribution, roles, self-schemas,
identity, and language, including symbolic interaction.
In
addition to training in the processes underlying the development
of identity and its relationship to affect, students will be exposed,
in didactic presentations in the proseminar as well as supervised
research experiences, to faculty who investigate a wide range of
stressful life transitions and their emotional and physical sequelae.
Margaret
Rosario (co-author of “The coming-out process and its
adaptational and health-related associations among gay, lesbian,
and bisexual youths: Stipulation and exploration of a model”
and “Gay-related stress and its correlates among gay and bisexual
male adolescents of predominantly Black and Hispanic background”)
researches the stresses involved in the coming-out process and the
relationship between identity issues and risky behaviors such as
violence and risky sexual behaviors.
Ann
Marie Yali (co-author “Stress-resistance resources and
coping in pregnancy”, “Guilt, discord, and alienation:
The role of religious strain in depression and suicidality) studies
stress in response to health problems such as risky pregnancies
or a diagnosis of cancer and to other traumas, such as the World
Trade Center tragedy. Her work on coping mechanisms, including religiosity
brings to the proseminar not only attention to protective factors
and positive psychology but also what William James referred to
as “the spiritual self”.
Glen
Milstein, (former Peace Corps Volunteer, author of “Ethnic
differences in the interpretation of mental illness: Perspectives
of caregivers”, Principal investigator on NIMH B-Start grant
on integrating clergy into mental health care) has been researching
acculturation processes of immigrants from an Eriksonian perspective
focusing on the interplay between stages of development and identity.
He has recently submitted a NARSAD grant on the means by which clergy
can be effective in decreasing the stigma of mental illness in minority
and immigrant communities.
Peter
Fraenkel, (co-author of “The prevention approach to relationship
problems” and participant in funded projects “Family
support from immigration to work” and “Fresh start for
[homeless] families”) uses a family systems perspective to
help immigrants and homeless families navigate the difficult transition
to mainstream culture and the workplace.
Cynthia
Grace Primeau (author of “Clinical applications of racial
identity theory") works on aspects of multicultural counseling,
particularly related to issues of African-Americans.
Anderson
J. Franklin (author of “Therapeutic interventions with
urban Black adolescents” and co-author of “Invisibility
syndrome: A clinical model of the effects of racism on African-American
males”) works on the health and mental health issues of African-American
males, particularly at adolescence.
Lissa
Weinstein (author of the forthcoming book Reading David for
families of children with learning disabilities and currently developing
psycho-educational modules for parents of learning disabled children)
works on the social and self-esteem issues that arise in children
with language/learning disabilities and in their parents
Irvin
Schonfeld (author of “Relation of negative affectivity
to self-reports of job stressors and psychological outcomes”
and “A longitudinal study of occupational stressors and depressive
symptoms in first-year female teachers”) investigates the
risk and protective factors influencing the development of depression,
anxiety, and self-esteem problems among newly-appointed teachers
first facing job stress, including work environment, social support,
and locus of control.
Brett
Silverstein (author of “Depression mixed with anxiety,
somatization and disordered eating: Relationship with gender-role-related
limitations experienced by females” and the book "The
cost of competence: Why inequality causes depression, eating disorders,
and illness in women") studies the development of depression,
anxiety, and somatic symptomatology beginning at adolescence among
women who confront identity issues related to facing gender-role
limitations.
In
addition to the coursework and supervised research experiences described
above, students in the Doctoral
Program in Experimental Cognition may take courses in a wide
range of cutting-edge techniques in statistics and research methodology.
These include courses in longitudinal techniques, epidemiology,
program evaluation, multivariate statistics, cost-benefit analyses,
neuroimaging, as well as many other methods courses taught in the
various doctoral subprograms of the City University of New York.
Additional coursework related to prevention open to doctoral students
is listed in the description of the Masters
Track.
