Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Lab
My research focus is in the area of traumatic event exposure and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I hold several specialty interests within this area:
- Understanding PTSD's symptom structure and high comorbidity (e.g., examining PTSD factor analytic models, teasing apart PTSD's high co-occurrence and symptom overlap with other mental disorders).
- Assessment of traumatic event exposure and PTSD (e.g., exploring more sophisticated assessment methodologies for linking PTSD assessment ratings to an index traumatic event, investigating the performance of newer assessment measures for trauma victims and PTSD patients).
- Mechanisms underlying the development of trauma-related pathology (e.g., examining PTSD and depression as factors contributing to physical health problems, exploring coping strategy use and relations to PTSD's development).
- Health services research for trauma victims and PTSD patients (e.g., investigating medical and mental healthcare utilization patterns and correlates, patient satisfaction, and treatment outcome).
I often accept one first-year clinical graduate student into my research lab each year (in addition to occasionally accepting a limited number of undergraduate psychology majors). Students applying to the clinical psychology Ph.D. program interested in working with me should contact me to inquire about possible research lab involvement: Click Here
Graduate students who work with me should be:
a) Highly motivated and interested in collaborating on high-quality scientific research and publishing the results,
b) Interested in a research area that is related to one or more of my research objectives, and
c) Energetic and productive in collaborating on research
Substantial preference is given to students who are interested in academic/research careers, who prefer to obtain mentoring for a career in research; students interested in primarily clinical practice careers will probably not enjoy working in the PTSD lab given the lab's high emphasis and expectations for conducting scientific research.
Jon D. Elhai, Ph.D.
Director
PTSD Lab
To obtain more information on Dr Elhai's research, courses, and resume, click here:
http://www.jon-elhai.com/