My primary, overarching research interest is in affective disorders in adult populations, and my recent work has been focused within several distinct subdomains.
First, I am interested in cognitive and emotional processing in mood disorders and related conditions – that is, the processing of cognitive and emotional events as well as cognitive and emotional reactions to stress. I have a longstanding interest in the ways in which individuals with both sub-threshold and threshold-level mood pathology experience their emotions and thoughts. For example, how do mood prediction biases interact with life stress to predict future depression symptoms (Wenze & Gunthert, 2018)? What types of emotion regulation strategies mediate the relationship between helicopter parenting and poor mental health in US college students (Wenze, Pohoryles, & DeCicco, 2019)? How does the process of experiential avoidance – making rigid, effortful attempts to avoid aversive internal experiences such as negative mood or thoughts – play out in those with bipolar disorder (Wenze, Kats, & Gaudiano, 2018)? What about in those with sub-threshold mood or anxiety symptoms (Wenze, Gaugler, Sheets, & DeCicco, 2018)?
On a more applied level, I am interested in psychosocial and technology-assisted treatment development for individuals suffering from mood disorders and commonly-comorbid concerns (e.g., anxiety, personality pathology, problematic drug and alcohol use, stress). Recently, this work has centered on perinatal mental health in new parents of twins and higher-order multiples; this is a growing population that is at elevated risk for symptoms of stress, depression, and anxiety (Wenze, Battle, & Tezanos, 2015), as well as disrupted sleep and poor maternal-infant bonding (Wenze, Battle, Huntley, Gaugler, & Kats, 2023). My work suggests that there is a large, unmet need for mental health treatment in parents of multiples in the perinatal period, especially in the early postpartum months (Wenze & Battle, 2018; Wenze, Miers, & Battle, 2020). This population also reports high interest in technology-assisted care for reasons of accessibility and the need for real-time, 24/7 support (Wenze et al., 2020). I am currently collaborating with colleagues at the University of Coimbra in Portugal to test an internet-delivered intervention for postpartum depression and anxiety in mothers of multiples.
Finally, I have an emerging area of scholarly interest in psychology training issues, particularly at the undergraduate level. Work in this area includes an empirical paper on the relationship between class start time and student outcomes in an introductory psychology course (Wenze & Charles, 2022) and an exploration of the benefits of establishing pre-mental health clinical competency standards for college students (Ernestus, Fleming, Wenze, & Blomquist, 2022). Another paper, examining graduate faculty’s expectations for student entry-level competence in graduate school vs. actual perceived competence, was recently accepted for publication (Blomquist, Wenze, Fleming, & Ernestus, 2023). Other scholarly output about psychology training includes a series of panel discussions at the annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies on evidence-based strategies to teach core clinical competencies to undergraduates; integrating community-based clinical projects into undergraduate psychology training; and using technology to improve clinical training at the college level.
I have been fortunate to receive support through both internal funds (e.g., Lafayette College Faculty Research Grant, Lafayette College Advanced Study Grant, Brown University seed money grants) and external awards (e.g., NIMH K23 Research Career Development Award, Psi Chi Graduate Research Grant) and fellowships (e.g., Fulbright U. S. Scholar Award, NSF ADVANCE grant-funded Faculty Success Fellowship, American Association of University Women American Fellowship).