Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Faculty of Life Sciences - Department of Psychology

For more information, see: http://www.dziobek-lab.org/

CV

2012-2014

Post-graduate training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

University of Chile, medical school.

2009 – 2012

Post-graduate medical specialization in Adult Psychiatry.

University of Chile, medical school.

2002-2008

Professional title of Medical Doctor.

University of Chile, medical school.         

2000 – 2001

Bachelor in Social Sciences and Humanities.

University of Chile.

Research Interests

Contemplative neuroscience-psychology; clinical social-affective neuroscience; psychotherapy and mindfulness interventions; philosophy of psychotherapy.

I am interested in the interplay between personal and interpersonal psychological processes. Particularly, I’m interested in the links between how emotions are regulated in these contexts, and the importance of these links in modulating attention, empathy, mentalizing, and self-referential processing. I am additionally interested in the contribution of these regulatory systems to maintaining healthy mental life, and how their disruption leads to the development of psychopathology in psychiatric disorders. I am currently looking at how certain interventions such as mindfulness meditation, targeting these regulatory systems (particularly emotion-regulation), might improve clinical outcomes via changes in emotion-cognitive processes and brain function.

References

2016 “Developmental Trauma from a Buddhist and Relational

Intersubjective perspective” Int J Psychotherapy, Vol. 20. Special

issue. pp. 94-113.

2016 “Varela and Contemporary Psychoanalysis, an epistemological gesture: from representations to co-emergence”. Studies in Gender & Sexuality. (In press).

2016 “Varela’s bio-philosophy of experience, from representation to co-emergence.” chapter in the book “Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Chile”. from the IARPP: International Association of Relational Psychoanalsis and Psychotherapy.

2015 “Neurobiology of meditation and intersubjective process: from self to intersubjective attunement” chapter in the book Mindfulness and Psychotherapy. Published by JC Saez Editores. (In press).

2014 “Empathy and borderline personality disorder: controversies

Brief Description of Research Project

Does mindfulness modulates empathy and mentalization?

The aim of this study is to determine whether a psychological intervention (mindfulness) affects neural responses of empathy and mentalising. To address these questions, we will conduct a prospective study, with pre-post measurements of neural correlates of empathy and mentalising using fMRI techniques.

Contributions of this research, at the level of Mind (humanities)/ Clinical (psychology-psychiatry)/ Brain (neuroscience). This research would help us to advance in these pertinent relevant questions:

• Can psychological interventions modify empathy and mentalization capacities. (mind/body issues; clinical implications- psychiatry and mental treatments).
• Can mindfulness meditation affect empathy and mentalizing capacities and their neural substrates. (affective and social neuro-plasticity).
• Is there a distinct effect in cognitive vs affective empathy, and also in cognitive vs affective theory of mind. (clarify the overlap and differences of constructs as: ToM aff-cog vs Empathy aff-cog).
• Clarify the neurobiological mechanisms of mindfulness meditation, beyond the attentional and the emotional regulation hypothesis, therefore proposing an empathy-mentalization hypothesis (expand the putative psychobiological mechanism of mindfulness meditation; and the effect of mindfulness in the “social brain”).