Areas of Application & Impact on the field
Dr. Pascual-Leone’s primary research focus is on experiential and emotion-focused psychotherapy as well as the role of emotion primarily in treatments for depression and complex trauma, which are the topics of his most significant papers on psychotherapy process (e.g., Pascual-Leone & Greenberg, 2007), and of a co-authored book (Paivio & Pascual-Leone, 2010). He has extended this work to non-clinically distressed victims of trauma by using the expressive writing paradigm, in his SSHRC-funded research program (Pascual-Leone, Metler, et al., 2012). This work is notable in its methodological rigor. In one study, data was collected from over 250 participants in which they wrote private journals about traumatic experiences, providing both self-reports and biological measures of emotion and stress over a five week period. Participants in this multi-method study were randomly assigned to five different writing conditions and have been examined for treatment outcomes as well as productive patterns in the content of their journals. His work demonstrates a strong commitment to the role of pure experimental approaches as a counterpoint to treatment research, because clinical theories may apply differently to normal functioning and to psychopathology.
He has also examined the role of emotion in gambling addiction (Gomes & Pascual-Leone, 2009; Pascual-Leone, Gomes, Orr, Kaploun & Abeare, 2011, Pascual-Leone, Campeau, & Harrington, 2012) and problem anger/violence (Pascual-Leone, Gillis, Singh, & Andreescu, 2013), which has led to studies on the effectiveness of treatments in clinical health care settings (Pascual-Leone, Bierman, Arnold & Stasiak, 2011; Gomes & Pascual-Leone, submitted). His study on the emotion-focused treatment of domestic abusers remains the only one of its kind, while the treatment manual he co-authored with Dr. Paivio describes the only existing treatment for both men and women suffering from physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Furthermore, the international use of his measures and wide citation of his process research, as well as awards from research societies and from APA, speaks to the impact of his work.
For more Information on Dr. Pascual-Leone's Research...
Visit Dr. Pascual-Leone's Scopus profile or ResearchGate profile.
For a complete list of publications and student co-authorships, see the left side sub-headings under Research. Use the following Google Scholar link to view Dr. Pascual-Leone's citation counts.
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Dr. Pascual-Leone's CV (Updated 06/21/2018)