Intrafamilial relationships are among the longest lasting relationships across the lifespan. Abuse within the four walls of the home is often prolonged, pervasive, and silenced. The Trauma Group is invested in giving voice to and raising awareness on intrafamilial violence and abuse and furthering the data on the topic.

 
- Sibling sexual abuse:

Sibling abuse, thought to be the common type of intrafamilial violence, has been largely neglected and overlooked in the research and remains misunderstood by practitioners and even the families who have experienced it. In 2021, the Trauma Group conducted and published a review aimed to precisely characterize the phenomenon of SSA and to condense the implications known to date of SSA on survivors. Currently, the Trauma Group is leading a multinational study spanning more than three countries utilizing a new and novel questionnaire in order to examine atypical sibling sexual experiences and assess its consequences and long-lasting effects.                                   

Trauma symptom patterns in military personnel Military service, especially in conflict zones, places servicemembers at greater risk for stress and potential exposure to various pervasive and debilitating forms of trauma. The nature of the heterogeneous symptomatology from experienced trauma is unique to each individual and must be examined holistically. Our lab uses gold-standard and person-centered approaches to identify individual symptom burden from the heterogeneous patterns of trauma symptomatology which will aid in establishing and implementing tailored avenues for treatment. Most recently, we conducted a latent class analysis with military veterans and successfully stratified the large sample into distinct patterns based on their reported symptom burden and trauma exposure.

Evidence suggests an association of negative life events and different mental disorders such as major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder. However, researchers disagree about mechanisms underlying this relationship and about how these relations might influence the course of psychotherapy. The purpose of this project is to address these issues in a clinical sample that has been screened in the beginning and at the end of their inpatient treatment. Data has been collected between October 2017 and March 2020.

Music is widely used to regulate one’s mental states, regardless of whether one feels happy or sad. It is known to have an effect on the way one view themselves and shapes their identity. In order to better understand the relationship between music and the self, it is important to the consider the mediating factors that may define this relationship. In this study we are conducting a mediation analysis to investigate the role of self-compassion in the relationship between music and self reference.

Although interest in human facial recognition ability has grown, the literature rarely investigates factors that influence facial recognition and especially self-face recognition. By using a novel self-morphing task, we are investigating whether and how childhood maltreatment related to self-recognition distortions.

The importance of parenting is widely accepted and established in previous literature, particularly with cases involving childhood maltreatment. Perceived control has been shown to be a key resilience factor in recovering from the lasting negative effects of childhood trauma. This project aims to explore the connection between parenting and the resulting perceived control of the child with the following questions. 1) How do parental affection, parental discipline, and gender of the parent interact to influence perceived control? 2) What is the association between childhood maltreatment and perceived control across time with parental discipline and parental affection as a moderator?