Department of Psychology

Biography:

Keywords: Borderline personality disorder, emotion regulation, dialectical behavior therapy, treatment mechanisms

I received my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington where I studied borderline personality disorder (BPD) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) under the mentorship of Marsha Linehan.  I completed an APA-approved clinical internship at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System (VAPHCS), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and National Center for PTSD at the VAPAHCS.  I joined the Department of Psychology at Ryerson University in August, 2010. 

My research interests embody a translational approach directed at examining basic emotion processes in severely disordered individuals and applying such knowledge to the development and refinement of psychosocial treatments.  I have a specific interest in examining emotional reactivity and regulation in BPD using multi-method (experiential, behavioral, physiological) experimental designs. More recently, I have begun to investigate these processes in other disorders characterized by emotion dysregulation such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Finally, I also have an interest in evaluating mechanisms of change underpinning cognitive behavioral treatments, particularly DBT. 

Some of my current areas of interest include:

• Comparing different emotion regulation strategies (e.g., acceptance, distraction, reappraisal) using multi-method laboratory paradigms
• Identifying typical emotion regulation strategies (adaptive and maladaptive) in BPD and PTSD
• Examining physiological correlates of different therapeutic strategies used in DBT
• Examining emotion regulation as a mechanism of change in DBT and other cognitive-behavioral treatments

Selected Publications: 

Kuo, J.R.  & Linehan, M.M. (2009).  Disentangling Emotion Processes in Borderline Personality Disorder:  Physiological and Self-reported Assessment of Biological Vulnerability, Baseline Emotional Intensity, and Reactivity to Emotionally-Evocative Stimuli.  Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118, 3, 531-544.

Ebner-Priemer, U., Kuo, J., Schlotz, W., Kleindienst, N., Rosenthal, M.Z., Detterer, L., Linehan, M., & Bohus, M. (2008).  Distress and Affect Regulation in Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder:  A Psychophysiological Ambulatory Monitoring Study.  Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 196, 4, 314-320.

Ebner-Priemer, U.W., Kuo, J.R., Kleindienst, N., Shaw Welch, S., Reisch, T., Reinhard, I., Lieb, K., Linehan, M., & Bohus, M. (2007). State Affective Instability in Borderline Personality Disorder Assessed by Ambulatory Monitoring.  Psychological Medicine, 4, 1-10.

Kuo, J.R., Korslund, K.E., & Linehan, M.M. (2006). Borderline Personality Disorder.  In A. Carr & M. McNulty (Eds.), Handbook of Adult Clinical Psychology: An Evidence Based Approach. London: Routledge.