Importantly, our model adds nuance to classic clinical science intuitions about empathy and reveals new directions for clinical research, training, and practice.

This contemporary framework highlights the multifaceted nature of empathy and challenges historical “more-is-better” models of empathy, which emerging evidence indicates can interfere with therapeutic goals in some settings.

Therapists’ emotions can affect their clients in many ways, including how treatment is delivered. Using the therapeutic emotional circuit, therapists can leverage empathy regulation to modulate the emotional flow between themselves and clients to achieve specific emotion goals for both parties.

We draw on advances in affective and clinical science to illustrate how empathy, just like emotions, can be regulated by therapists to align with client goals and facilitate treatment.

We have a new paper by @eriknook.bsky.social and Dr. Jamil Zaki published in @psychscience.bsky.social Clinical Psych Science! In this paper, we propose a “therapeutic emotional circuit” model in which emotions flow back and forth between therapist and client via empathy.

Therapists’ emotions can affect their clients in many ways, including how treatment is delivered. Using the therapeutic emotional circuit, therapists can leverage empathy regulation to modulate the emotional flow between themselves and clients to achieve specific emotion goals for both parties.

We draw on advances in affective and clinical science to illustrate how empathy, just like emotions, can be regulated by therapists to align with client goals and facilitate treatment.

Last but not least, on Saturday we have a fantastic lineup of speakers to close out SAS weekend. Hope to see you at SAS!
@affectscience.bsky.social

Continuing strong on Friday, come check out our four lab members giving talks and posters!
@affectscience.bsky.social

Later in the day on Thursday, we also have four amazing posters at Poster Session I.
@affectscience.bsky.social

We're excited about SAS 2026! Mark your calendars to check out our lab's latest work.
Beginning with the Thursday preconferences, we have two lab members presenting at the Dev Precon and the Clinical Precon!
@affectscience.bsky.social

We had a blast talking about science at Village Elementary School with a lovely group of students, and presenting some of our research. Here’s to inspiring the next generation of scientists! Thank you Village Elementary for having us!

This past weekend, we closed out fall break with a lovely day at the annual Community Fest, held by Ewing Township and The College of New Jersey! We had a fantastic time chatting with everyone about our research.
@tcnj.bsky.social

We are so excited to welcome Dr. Ryan Brown, Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University, who is joining our lab on a micro-sabbatical! Her research focuses on the role of love and loss in shaping mental and physical health across the lifespan.
@ryanlinnbrown.bsky.social
@starlabteam.bsky.social

These exciting results highlight the potential of LLM-powered linguistic analysis to detect people who are struggling with anxiety and depression. They also deepen our understanding of the interpersonal processes that support effective therapy.

LLMs can also expand beyond only analyzing client language and estimate how strongly therapists encouraged distance in their clients. Ratings also tracked changing symptoms when word-counting approaches could not!

We have a new paper published in @cpsyjournal.bsky.social! We used large-language models (LLMs) to estimate linguistic distance in psychotherapy text and found that these ratings tracked with clients’ symptoms in treatment over time, more strongly than word-counting techniques did.

These exciting results highlight the potential of LLM-powered linguistic analysis to detect people who are struggling with anxiety and depression. They also deepen our understanding of the interpersonal processes that support effective therapy.

LLMs can also expand beyond only analyzing client language and also estimate how strongly therapists encouraged distance in their clients. Ratings also tracked changing symptoms when word-counting approaches could not!

The academic year has officially begun! Looking forward to a fantastic Fall semester together! 😄

We are very proud to announce that Dr. Erik Nook is the recipient of the Society for Research in Psychopathology’s 2025 Early Career Award! Congratulations @eriknook.bsky.social 🎉

Exciting day — we have a new lab manager, joining us from Stanford! Emily is interested in studying how people process and communicate emotional experiences, especially in clinical settings. Let's give her a warm welcome!

Cheering on a baseball game, @trentonthunder.com, with an amazing summer lab team!

What a year it's been for the lab - so many incredible accomplishments! A special shoutout to Angie on her graduation and all of her outstanding work. Our junior students also wrapped up strong projects and are heading into senior year, ready for discoveries.

Huge congratulations to Chantal @talvaldivia.bsky.social
for receiving an NSF Honorable Mention and to Dan
@danmirea.bsky.social for being awarded a Procter Fellowship from the Graduate School earlier this month! We’re so proud of their achievements!

Join us in congratulating our lab’s incredible poster presenters at SAS 2025! We’re so proud of their hard work and accomplishments.

@raziasahi.bsky.social
@claire-whiting.bsky.social
@hennavartiainen.bsky.social
@smesquiti.bsky.social
@milkawaniak.bsky.social
Angie Challman

We’re thrilled to celebrate Erik for co-authoring the Best Paper at SAS (Nencheva et al., 2024) and Dan for winning the Diversity Award!

Beyond these achievements, our lab members gave fantastic talks: @eriknook.bsky.social @raziasahi.bsky.social @danmirea.bsky.social @claire-whiting.bsky.social

Last but not least, we have a great lineup of fantastic presentations on the final day. Hope to see you at SAS!

On Friday, we are continuing our SAS presentations with three amazing lab members - don't miss it!

We are thrilled about SAS 2025! Mark your calendars to see our lab's latest work! Check out the schedule for Thursday - Emotion Regulation Pre-conference: