News

A team of researchers led by Duke Psychiatry's Nancy Zucker, PhD, recently found promising results for a brief online intervention targeted at altering young adults’ manner of engagement with social media. The intervention aimed to supplant college students’ habitual social comparison when active on social media with social savoring: experiencing joyful emotions about someone else’s experiences. For those taught how and why to socially savor their daily social media intake, shifting focus from social comparison to social savoring measurably increased their performance self-esteem.

We recently sat down with Tuyen Phan, MBA, an administrative director in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, to learn more about his path to research administration, his career at Duke, his Vietnamese culture, and his thoughts about Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Gregg Robbins-Welty, MD, MS, a fourth-year internal medicine-psychiatry resident at Duke University Medical Center, is one of 14 medical students and early-career physicians chosen for the 2023 Medical Program of the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE).

The inaugural child trauma summit at N.C. State University on April 27-28 drew hundreds of people in person and virtually. They came from across the state and various disciplines an also included people with lived experience. Duke Psychiatry's Lisa Amaya-Jackson, MD, MPH, Ernestine Briggs-King, PhD, William Copeland, PhD, and Angela Tunno, PhD, were among the speakers.

Scientists at University of California San Francisco, Yale, and Duke (Duke Psychiatry's Bill Wetsel, PhD) have developed two new drug candidates for potentially treating addiction and depression, modeled on the pharmacology of a traditional African psychedelic plant medicine called ibogaine. At very low doses, these new compounds were able to blunt symptoms of both conditions in mice.

With May designated as Mental Health Awareness Month, Duke Today highlights some of the mental health and well-being resources available through Duke for faculty, staff, trainees, and students.

Kelly Sullivan, PhD, director of mental health services at the Center for Child & Family Health and associate professor in Duke Psychiatry, has dedicated her career to treating and preventing childhood trauma. Dr. Sullivan was recognized as Blue Devil of the Week.

Anyone who is struggling to recover from trauma can now receive one of the gold-standard treatments for PTSD, thanks to a new book co-authored by Patricia Resick, PhD. "Getting Unstuck from PTSD: Using Cognitive Processing Therapy to Guide Your Recovery" is the first self-help workbook based on cognitive processing therapy (CPT).

Duke Psychiatry's Kafui Dzirasa, MD, PhD, has been inducted into the class of 2023 of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) “for his pioneering work in understanding the electrical patterns that underlie mental health disorders and his advocacy for inclusive science.”

A community of graduate students and faculty from the Duke Clinical Psychology Program dedicated to fostering inclusive excellence recently won a Graduate School award for their work. Duke Psychiatry's Zach Rosenthal, PhD, who also holds an appointment in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, is the faculty lead for the group.