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Research Areas:

Clinical Psychology

Research Summary:

As the director of the Treating and Understanding Life-threatening behaviour and Posttraumatic stress (TULiP lab), my research is focused on demystifying, destigmatizing, and broadening access to treatments for borderline personality disorder (BPD), emotion dysregulation, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I specifically aim to optimize, expedite, and expand access to interventions for these disorders by targeting them alongside the social contexts that they are nested within. My research can be organized into four interrelated streams. The first involves advancing understanding of the nature of BPD and its social context through experimental, ecological momentary assessment, and observational studies. The remaining three involve using clinical trial methodologies to develop and test (1) Sage– a brief, conjoint intervention for people with BPD and their significant others; (2) scalable interventions for PTSD and BPD (e.g., peer-support interventions); and (3) interventions for comorbid BPD and PTSD. Prior to joining the faculty at Â鶹Éç, I was an Associate Professor at York University in Toronto.

Selected References:

Fitzpatrick, S.*, Crenshaw, A.O.*, Valela, R., Samonas, C., Earle, E.A., Goss, S., Hernandez, K.M., Bushe, J., Varma, S., Proctor, D., Wagner, A.C., Goenka, K., Luxor, O., Collins, A., Morland, L., Shields, N., Roth, M., Doss, B.D., Schumm, J., & Monson, C.M. (2025). A randomized controlled trial testing Couple HOPES: An online, self-help couples’ intervention for posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 93, 580-594 .

*co-first authors

Fitzpatrick, S., Varma, S., Traynor, J., Earle, E. A., Vanstone, R., Fulham, L., Goenka, K., Blumberg, M. J., Wyatt, L., Siegel, A. N., Di Bartolomeo, A. A., Norouzian, N., Burdo, J., Ennis, N., Carney, A., Luxor, O., Sankar, R., Monson, C., & Liebman, R. (in press). A pilot and feasibility study of Sage: A couple therapy for borderline personality disorder. Psychotherapy Research.

Di Bartolomeo, A. A., Siegel, A. N., Fulham, L., & Fitzpatrick, S. (2024). Borderline personality disorder and social connectedness: A systematic review. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, Treatment, 15, 213-225.

Fitzpatrick, S., Liebman, R. E., Varma, S., Norouzian, N., Chafe, D., Traynor, J., Goss, S., Earle, E., Di Bartolomeo, A., Latham, M., Courey, L., Monson, C. M. (2023). Protocol development of Sage: A novel conjoint intervention for suicidal and self-injuring people with borderline personality disorder and their significant others. Cognitive Behavioral Practice, 30(4), 707-720.

Fitzpatrick, S., Liebman, R., & Monson, C. M. (2021). The Borderline Interpersonal-Affective Systems (BIAS) Model: Extending understanding of the interpersonal context of borderline personality disorder. Clinical Psychology Review, 84, 101983-101983.

Fitzpatrick, S., Varma, S., & Kuo, J. R. (2020). Is borderline personality disorder really an emotion dysregulation disorder and, if so, how?: A comprehensive test across emotion dysregulation components. Psychological Medicine, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291720004225

Fitzpatrick, S., Wagner, A., & Monson, C. (2019). Optimizing borderline personality disorder treatment by incorporating significant others: A review and synthesis. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 10, 297-308.

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