Tara Spitzen, M.A.
Background Information
Tara is a second year clinical psychology graduate student under the mentorship of Dr. Kim Gratz. Tara was a research assistant in Dr. Matthew Nock's lab at Harvard University from 2013-2016, where she worked on the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers and on social media and machine learning studies to predict suicide risk. Tara then received a M.A. in Psychology from American University under the mentorship of Dr. Anthony Ahrens. Her master's thesis used ecological momentary assessment to investigate the role of negative emotion duration in self-destructive behaviors.
Research/Clinical Interests
Tara’s research interests focus on emotion dysregulation in individuals who experience suicidality and nonsuicidal self-injury. She aims to explore the roles of understudied emotion-related factors, such as relief and emotion duration, in self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs). Tara also seeks to investigate how attitudes toward and beliefs about emotion regulation may contribute to the relationship between emotion dysregulation and SITBs.
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS
Spitzen, T. L., Tull, M. T., Baer, M. M., Dixon-Gordon, K. L., Chapman, A. L., & Gratz, K. L. (in press). Predicting engagement in NSSI over the course of 12 months: The roles of BPD pathology and emotional consequences of NSSI. Journal of Affective Disorders.
Spitzen, T. L., Tull, M. T., Gratz., K. L. (submitted for consideration for publication). The roles of emotion regulation self-efficacy and emotional avoidance in self-injurious thoughts and behaviors.
Gratz., K. L., Spitzen, T. L., & Tull, M. T. (2020). Expanding our understanding of the relationship between nonsuicidal self-injury and suicide attempts: The roles of emotion regulation self-efficacy and the acquired capability for suicide. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 76(9), 1653-1667.