Gottlieb receives Fulbright Award

13-6861-SARFACULTY-144-GOTTLIEBResearch Assistant Professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy and Senior Researcher at the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation (CPR), Jennifer Gottlieb received a Fulbright Scholar Award for the 2015–2016 academic year. Gottlieb is the recipient of a Senior Researcher award to Spain where she will continue her work in the development, evaluation, and dissemination of a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) intervention for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), specifically designed for persons who have serious mental illness.

Despite the extremely high prevalence of trauma and PTSD in those who have serious mental illness, evidence-based therapy to meet the needs of this group is largely unavailable, and the population is dramatically underserved in Spain. Gottlieb’s project will bring this CBT for PTSD intervention to Spain with four main objectives:

  • adapt the treatment manual into Castellano Spanish for use by project clinicians and as a future dissemination resource
  • train clinicians and evaluate their effective delivery of this intervention
  • study the treatment’s impact on a cohort of clients in a Madrid community mental health center, via a small randomized clinical trial
  • develop a comprehensive implementation plan for continued, sustainable use and expansion of this CBT program in Madrid and beyond.

Gottlieb completed her undergraduate degree in psychology and Spanish at American University in Washington, D.C., earned her PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Montana, and completed her clinical internship at the University of California, San Diego. Her work has been devoted to the development and implementation of effective psychosocial interventions to help individuals with schizophrenia. Her research focuses on the development and provision of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) treatments for people with psychotic disorders; novel treatments for those with first-episode psychosis; the use of technology to improve CBT for Psychosis dissemination; and interventions for trauma and PTSD in vulnerable populations.