Director, Laboratory for Dynamic Processes of Psychopathology and Psychotherapy
Lab website
ABOUT MY WORK
The motivation for my research program is to understand the nature and treatment of personality disorders, and specifically borderline personality disorder (BPD). Towards this end I employ two broad lines of research: a) experimental psychopathology research on dysfunctions in interpersonal- and self-related psychological processes associated with BPD, such as emotion regulation and mentalizing (the ability to make sense of one’s and others’ mental states); and b) psychotherapy research aimed at assessing treatments for BPD and their underlying mechanisms. In these lines of research, I integrate neuroscientific and psychophysiological methods involving healthy and clinical populations with a special emphasis on intensive data collection and advanced data analytic methods.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
1. Kivity, Y., Levy, K.N., Kolly, S., & Kramer, U. (2020). The therapeutic alliance over ten sessions of therapy for borderline personality disorder: Agreement and congruence analysis, and relations with outcome. Journal of Personality Disorders, 34(1), 1-21.
2. Kivity, Y., Levy, K.N., Wasserman, R.H., Beeney, J.E., Meehan, K.B. & Clarkin, J.F. (2020). Conformity to prototypical therapeutic principles and its relation with change in reflective-functioning in three treatments for borderline personality disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 87(11), 975-988.
3. Kivity, Y. & Huppert, J.D. (2019). Emotion regulation in social anxiety: A systematic investigation using self-report, behavioral, and event-related potentials measures. Cognition & Emotion, 33, 213-230.
4. Kivity, Y. & Huppert, J.D. (2018). Are individuals with social anxiety successful in regulating their emotions? A mixed-method investigation using self-report, behavioral, and event-related potentials measures. Journal of Affective Disorders, 236, 298-305.
5. Kivity, Y. & Huppert, J.D. (2016). Does cognitive reappraisal reduce anxiety? A daily diary study of a micro-intervention with individuals with high social anxiety. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 84(3), 269-283.
RESEARCH PROJECTS
• Automatic Assessment of the Capacity for Mentalizing in Clinical Interviews via Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning Techniques (Co-PI: Prof. Reut Tsarfaty, Department of Computer Science)
• Assessing and improving mentalizing capacities in the daily lives of individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder
• Lab-based assessment of automatic mentalizing abilities among individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder
• The impact of personality pathology on treatment outcome: A meta-analysis