Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology
Research
Clark’s setting as a small, urban research university provides a wealth of opportunities to grow as an independent researcher. Using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods, our clinical psychology graduate program ensures students receive extensive research training that builds cumulatively from foundational and more heavily mentored experiences to more independent activities, including building a research portfolio and completing an independent dissertation study.
As teaching assistants and through lab work, graduate students collaborate with faculty, their cohorts, and undergraduates while managing and mentoring teams. Indeed, much research takes place with and among our partners in the greater Worcester community. Graduate students present their work at external conferences and at Clark’s Graduate Student Multidisciplinary Conference, and publish in leading journals like Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Child Development, the Journal of Early Adolescence, the Journal of Marriage and Family, the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, and Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology.
The small size of our program allows students to build close mentored relationships with their faculty advisers who are recognized experts in their fields.
Recent dissertations
Faculty research areas
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Diverse families and sexualities
Abbie Goldberg’s research examines diverse families, including LGBTQ-parent families and adoptive-parent families, as well as the experiences of marginalized groups such as trans youth. A central theme of her research is the decentering of any “normal” or “typical” family, sexuality, or gender, to allow room for diverse families, sexualities, and genders. For the past 20 years, she has been conducting a longitudinal study of lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive families. In addition, she is currently conducting several studies examining the effects of state and federal legislation (e.g., regarding LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights) on LGBTQ people and families.
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Child and family research group
Our lab is interested in studying the influence of social structures such as class and racial structures on young children’s mental health and development. We are interested in how children think about their and others’ social identities, how they understand the function of these identities within social structures, and how others (parents, teachers, and peers) socialize children with respect to their identities. All of these questions are motivated by an interest in the downstream impacts of identity beliefs and socialization on children’s emotional and social functioning. Recent work in the lab has focused on critical consciousness as a protective factor for children who are socially marginalized. Other recent work examines anti-racist and anti-classist parental socialization of young children with racial and/or class privilege.
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Mental health, culture, and community research program
In the United States, well-documented mental health care disparities disproportionately affect individuals from low-income and cultural minority backgrounds. Our lab’s mission, carried out by faculty, as well as graduate and undergraduate students, is to help reduce these scientific and service utilization gaps through a combination of basic and applied research that focuses on urban, cultural minority children, adults, and families. The research conducted by lab members covers a range of areas relevant to mental health care disparities, including developmental psychopathology, treatment-seeking services research, and intervention development.
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Center for couples and family research at Clark University
The Center for Couples and Family Research at Clark University is a team clinical research effort consisting of faculty, doctoral, and undergraduate students. Our goal is to produce cutting-edge research on intimate relationships and on the development of focused interventions to promote relationship and marital health.
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Emotion regulation lab
Kathleen Palm Reed directs this research group of graduate and undergraduate students in examining the role of emotion regulation (e.g. distress tolerance, psychological flexibility) in psychopathology and substance use disorders. Some of the lab’s ongoing and future projects include research on reducing stigma related to substance use disorders, and developing prevention programming for sexual assault and interpersonal violence among sexual and gender minorities.
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Masculinities and mental health
This group, led by Dr. Addis, examines intersections between the social construction and social learning of masculinities and the mental health of people of all genders. Current studies focus on depression, sexual scripts, emotional silence and invisibility, fathering in the African context, and the development of critical awareness of masculinity.
Recent publications
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- Jampel, J. D., Gazarian, D., Addis, M. E., & Hoffman, E. (2020). Traditional masculinity ideology and diagnostic aversion predict symptom expression in a community sample of distressed men. Sex Roles, 82, 704-715.
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- Kline, N. K., Cabrera, K. B., & Reed, K. M. P. (2021). Predicting different types of intimate partner aggression perpetration: The roles of problem alcohol use and distress tolerance. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Advance online publication.
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- Kline, N. K., & Palm Reed, K. M. (2020). Betrayal vs. nonbetrayal trauma: Examining the different effects of social support and emotion regulation on PTSD symptom severity. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Advance online publication.
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- Lerner, R. E., & Grolnick, W. S. (2020). Maternal involvement and children’s academic motivation and achievement: The roles of maternal autonomy support and children’s affect. Motivation and Emotion, 44(3), 373-388. doi: 10.1007/s11031-019-09813-6.
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- Lerner, R. E., Camerota, M., Tully, K. P., & Propper, C. (2020). Associations between mother-infant bed-sharing practices and infant affect and behavior during the still-face paradigm. Infant Behavior and Development. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101464
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- Goldberg, A. E., Garcia, R. L., & Manley, M. H. (in press). Monosexual and nonmonosexual women in same-sex couples: Relationship quality and mental health during the first five years of parenthood. Sexual and Relationship Therapy.
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- Goldberg, A., Frost, R., Noyola, N. Evidence-based practice for LGBT parents. (To appear in The Handbook of Evidence-based Mental Health Practice with LGBT Clients.
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- Rice, J., & Virginia, H. (2024). Relationships with families of origin. In The SAGE encyclopedia of LGBTQ+ studies. Edited by Abbie E. Goldberg. 2nd Edition. SAGE Publications, Inc.
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- Petrova, K., Nevarez, M.D., Rice, J., Waldinger, R.J., Preacher, K.J., & Schulz, M.S. (2021). Coherence Between Feelings and Heart Rate: Links to Early Adversity and Responses to Stress. Affective Science.
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- Goldberg, A. E., Silvert, L., & Farr, R. Family-Building Desires Among Adopted Adolescents with Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Parents. (2024). Family Relations: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Studies.
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- Goldberg, A. E., Silvert, L., & Charlton, B. (2024). Perceived Impact of the Overturning of Roe v. Wade on Queer Parents’ Reproductive and Sexual Lives. Sexuality Research and Social Policy.
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- Silvert, L., & Mezey, N. Deciding Whether to Parent. (2024). In A. E. Goldberg (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Studies (second ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781071891414
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- Goldberg, A., Virginia, H., Logan, M., Silvert, L., McCormick, N. (2023). “If only we knew…”: An Exploratory Study of Parents of Adopted Adolescents Seeking Residential Treatment. Children and Youth Services Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.107053
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- Wagner, A. C. & Heberle, A. E. (2024). Exploring the development of narrative identities in emerging adults who have been in foster care. Children and Youth Services Review, 164, 107868.
