Clinical Psychology

of interest, generate newsletters to inform local
schools and families about our research findings, and
conduct interviews with various media outlets about
my research and related topics.

What are your particular areas of expertise or interest?
My research and teaching center broadly on the field of
developmental psychopathology. In particular, my work
is guided by a person-by-environment framework that
considers how attributes of youth (e.g., sex, tempera-
ment, social-cognitive processes, biological and behav-
ioral responses to stress) and their environments (e.g.,
family, peer group, school context) jointly contribute to
well-being or ill-being across development. Theoretically,
my work is characterized by two organizing themes.
First, my research emphasizes a developmental perspec-
tive on psychopathology. This perspective is reflected in
a focus on: (a) developmentally relevant vulnerabilities;
(b) transactional processes—i.e., reciprocal influences
between youth and their environments—that perpetu-
ate psychopathology over time; (c) the role of develop-
mental transitions; and (d) the early developmental
origins of vulnerability. Second, my research emphasizes
an interpersonal perspective on psychopathology. In
particular, relationships are viewed as a fundamental
context for development. I propose that psychopathol-
ogy both emerges from, and contributes to, a disruption
in developmentally salient interpersonal processes that
interferes with youths’basic need to be related to
others. A particular focus is placed in my research on
understanding the emergence of sex-differentiated tra-
jectories of psychopathology across development.

What are the future trends you see for
clinical psychology?
Integration, integration, integration. One of the most
salient trends in the field of clinical psychology is the
blurring of boundaries across disciplines. Of course,
one of the most rapidly growing areas in this respect is
the intersection of neuroscience and clinical science,
particularly efforts to use cutting-edge technology in
the fields of molecular genetics and brain imaging to
identify and clarify biological processes involved in
psychopathology. As a field, it will be critical to trans-
late these findings into practical applications through
their incorporation into a new generation of diagnos-
tic, prevention, and intervention procedures that drive

targeted efforts to reduce the development and

exacerbation of symptoms. Success in this endeavor

will require a consideration of how developing bio-

logical systems are influenced by, and influence, psy-

chological, affective, and social processes underlying

risk for psychopathology.

How will clinical psychology change as a

field as our methods for assessing behaviors

(and psychopathology, and biomarkers)

continue to evolve?

As the field develops more sophisticated and precise

methods for assessing genetic, cognitive, affective,

biological, and behavioral markers of psychopathol-

ogy, it is likely that we will place less emphasis on our

traditional system of diagnostic classification, as

reflected in theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual, and

will move toward a system that emphasizes specific

processes involved in the emergence of symptoms. This

movement is reflected in the National Institutes of

Mental Health’s Research Domain Criteria project,

which is attempting to identify critical constructs of

interest at multiple levels of analysis that may bridge

across traditionally defined disorders. The field also is

likely to be marked by increasing acknowledgement of

the need to consider quantitative differences in the

expression of psychopathology in addition to, or per-

haps eventually instead of, qualitative boundaries

between disorders.

Karen D. Rudolph

L. Brian Stauffer

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