Despite progress in the identification of effective youth mental health interventions,
​rates of youth mental illness remain stable and high.

Low access to treatment contributes to this problem:
In the U.S.,  up to 80% of youths in need of psychological services never receive them.
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The goals of our research are:

(1) Build brief, barrier-free supports—especially single-session interventions—to promote mental health at scale

(2) Identify mechanisms of change and treatment-matching strategies to build powerful, personalized interventions

(3) Test novel approaches to dissemination in non-traditional settings (beyond brick-and-mortar clinics)

We specialize in SINGLE-SESSION INTERVENTIONS (SSIs) for mental health. 

Due to logistical, financial, and many other barriers, up to 80% of youths discontinue mental health treatment prematurely, with a sizable number dropping out after just one session. This reality make it critical to understand what it is possible to accomplish through a single, self-contained "dose" of intervention. Our research has pioneered and formalized a new subfield within clinical psychology—the study of single-session interventions (SSIs) for mental health--opening paths toward reducing mental illness at scale, especially for those without access to traditional forms of care. We led the first-ever meta-analysis of single-session interventions (SSIs) for youth mental health problems. Across 50 clinical trials including 10,508 youths, SSIs demonstrated a significant beneficial effect—even for self-guided interventions (i.e., those that did not involve a therapist). 

To date, our research team have developed and rigorously tested six open-access SSIs for mental health, including online (self-guided) and therapist-delivered SSIs, which have served >30,000 people to date. These programs have reduced depression, anxiety, disordered eating, and internalized stigma—in some cases, up 3-9 months later. Practical and public health implications of these results are considerable: for some, SSIs may present a cost-effective alternative or adjunct to traditional mental health services.
​Ongoing projects are exploring the promise of SSIs and other scalable intervention strategies—particularly novel, theoretically-precise approaches harnessing family processes and youth cognitions, using low-cost delivery systems—to help lessen the burden of depression and related difficulties youth. We are currently launching projects testing new strategies of matching youths to mechanism-targeted SSIs based on their personal symptom profiles using an idiographic network analysis approach, along with projects testing deployment of SSIs in nontraditional settings (e.g., pediatric primary care).

We work to EXPAND ACCESS to brief, barrier-free mental health supports.

Our lab aims to broaden existing boundaries on where mental health interventions can be successfully delivered (e.g., at home; online; via tele-health; in primary care clinics), as well as what mental health supports can look like (e.g., self-administered, single-session programs). To circumvent common barriers to accessing care (e.g., over-reliance on expensive, clinic-based services with long waiting-lists), we are testing several novel approaches to disseminating care. Our ongoing, open-access initiative, Project YES (Youth Empowerment & Support), creates a space for teens to independently and freely access single-session, online mental health programs. Initial evidence suggests that Project YES may render interventions accessible to marginalized, often underserved groups, including LGBTQ+ youths and youths of color. Other ongoing projects are exploring the acceptability and utility of SSIs when delivered through pediatric primary care clinics (for adolescents with depression) and for individuals on waiting-lists for psychotherapy (with diverse problem types), and embedding our SSIs directly into large-scale social media platforms.  Ultimately, we hope to extend the scope of the mental healthcare ecosystem by creating new spaces and opportunities for individuals to obtain effective, well-timed, efficient support that fits their clinical needs. 
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Our SSIs promote HOPE and MALLEABILITY BELIEFS to promote mental health. 

​​Compared to youths who believe personal traits are malleable, those who believe personal traits are fixed experience more academic and self-regulatory distress. Recently, studies have begun to explore relations between beliefs about the malleability of personal traits, or 'mindsets', and youth mental health problems. In a  meta-analysis on this topic, we observed that youths who view personal traits and abilities as fixed and unchangeable are more likely to experience a wide variety of mental health problems, and that youth psychopathology predicts increases in maladaptive, fixed mindsets over time. In a randomized-controlled trial supported by the NIMH, the APF, and the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, we found that an intervention teaching that emotions, behavior, and symptoms are malleable may show promise: compared to a control program, a 30-minute growth mindset intervention improved physiological stress recovery and perceived control, as well as longer-term anxiety and depressive symptoms, in high-symptom early adolescents.  In a recent NIH-funded trial (including close to 2,500 teens experiencing depression), we found that our digital single-session intervention significantly reduced teen depression symptoms three months later. 

Current and future studies are evaluating predictors of this program and other SSIs' effects; mechanisms underlying the intervention's effects (e.g. improved perceived control or reduced hopelessness); and whether the program may help reduce youth depression at scale, either independently or in combination with longer-term evidence-based therapies.