Lindsay Schenkel - Featured Faculty 2023
Lindsay Schenkel
College of Liberal Arts
Lindsay Schenkel’s research is in the area of developmental psychopathology and risk for serious mental illness. Specifically, she is interested in the relationship between early traumatic experiences and later clinical outcomes among individuals with mood and psychotic disorders. She also studies emotion processing among individuals with serious mental illness, as well as those with trauma histories. To this end, her research attempts to integrate clinical, social-cognitive, and developmental approaches in the study of at-risk individuals for later psychological maladjustment.
Child maltreatment is known to be a significant risk factor for a number of maladaptive outcomes in adulthood, including psychiatric disorders and impairments in interpersonal functioning. As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Schenkel is interested in both risk and protective factors in the development of mental illness among individuals who have experienced child maltreatment. For example, the degree to which secure parent-child relationships can help to buffer the negative long-term effects of early trauma. She has conducted a number of investigations reporting elevated rates of child maltreatment among individuals with schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, and the degree to which these individuals show impairments in interpersonal and social-cognitive functioning. Her work has also examined the rates of child maltreatment among individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. By gaining a better understanding of risk and resilience in the development of serious mental illness, her goal is to develop more tailored treatment and intervention programs for individuals with trauma histories.
Her research incorporates the involvement of both undergraduate and graduate students who have presented their work at national conferences and co-authored manuscripts. She has published approximately 30 peer-reviewed manuscripts in journals such as the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Child Abuse and Neglect, and the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and has presented at numerous conferences and professional meetings.
Lindsay Schenkel
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
College of Liberal Arts