Elisabeth O'Rourke is a PhD student in clinical psychology in UAlbany's College of Arts and Sciences. She studies how self-regulation predicts the development of psychopathology in children, adolescents and emerging adults.
Elisabeth O'Rourke is a PhD student in clinical psychology in UAlbany's College of Arts and Sciences. She studies how self-regulation predicts the development of psychopathology in children, adolescents and emerging adults.
The UAlbany News Podcast is hosted and produced by Sarah O'Carroll, a Communications Specialist at the University at Albany, State University of New York, with production assistance by Patrick Dodson and Scott Freedman.
Have a comment or question about one of our episodes? You can email us at mediarelations@albany.edu, and you can find us on Twitter @UAlbanyNews. This show is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Radio Public, Spotify, iHeart Radio and TuneIn.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Welcome to the UAlbany News Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah O'Carroll. With me today is Elisabeth O'Rourke, a PhD student in Clinical Psychology at UAlbany. She studies how self regulation predicts the development of psychopathology in children, adolescents, and emerging adults.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Elisabeth, that's a big of a mouthful. Could you break down just what self regulation, predicting the development of psychopathology means in practical terms?
Elisabeth O.:
Absolutely. I'm really interested in looking at how essential youths can regulate their emotions, and regulate their own behaviors. We look specifically at things like coping, or more cognitively driven self regulation, so like executive functioning, so their ability to inhibit themselves, and to pay attention, and have that prolonged attention on things. That's kind of the self regulation that we look at.
Elisabeth O.:
Then, I'm really interested in how those aspects of self regulation may or may not predict things like anxiety, or depression, or ADHD in children, youth, and emerging adults.
Sarah O'Carroll:
All right, well very neat. When psychologists refer to emerging adulthood as a life stage, what age range is meant by this?
Elisabeth O.:
You're typically looking at your college student population, so usually 18 to 25 year olds. I think it was Arnett who originally kind of proposed that age group. However, it can range from 17, to 26, to 30. But, generally you're looking at that college population.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Okay. Now, what makes this period in a young person's life so crucial in projecting mental health and development?
Elisabeth O.:
This is really a period of time where individuals are exploring their identities, exploring what they want to do professionally, or not to do professionally. Usually we look at college students, and there's a lot of pressure coming from high school, and entering their first year of college, living on your own, trying to decide what classes to take, how to get to class, how to get your own food.
Sarah O'Carroll:
I'm stressed already thinking back.
Elisabeth O.:
Yeah, it's a big transition. I think we often take that for granted because you often live on campus, and there's certainly some supports on campus. But, students aren't always reaching out to those supports, or getting those supports. We can see that some students really thrive in that environment, and thrive with that independence. But, sometimes we have students who get really anxious, and aren't making it to class, don't have the proper study skills, and even the more basics of getting around, and meeting people, and feeding themselves, and getting the proper sleep. It can be a really stressful time, and so we typically see a lot of stress and mental health related issues with your first year students. And, they slowly, we hope, develop some of those coping skills over time, and better self regulation over time.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Okay. Now, in your study you cite the statistic that around 17% of college students in the US were diagnosed or treated for an anxiety disorder. This was in 2016. Is that a lot, or what does the longitudinal data suggest about this figure as a trend?
Elisabeth O.:
That does feel like a lot to me. Anxiety is very prevalent, and that's just for students who sought mental health services, and were able to be diagnosed. You can imagine that there's significantly more who go undiagnosed and untreated, which is worrisome certainly. I think that we have seen an increase over the years. We've seen an increase over the years in diagnoses of many different disorders including anxiety and depression. We think that, I mean psychologists speculate that it's related to us being better at diagnosing, better at catching these things ahead of time, and being able to provide treatment.
Elisabeth O.:
But, we also think that there is a lot of pressure on particularly emerging adults at this stage of life, to figure out exactly what you want to do with your life, and know who you are, and that's not always the case. We do see that students are taking longer to graduate, or spending more time in school, or will graduate and then do something completely different from what they had predicted that they would do. I think we are seeing this basic trend of an increase in anxiety and depression.
Sarah O'Carroll:
And so, you're kind of saying that it's both that there's more being diagnosed, more people recognizing it and wanting to do something about it, but at the same time there's also these trends that are saying there is a legitimate increase, and it's do to these pressures.
Elisabeth O.:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's the combination of both. And, it's hard to tap into what is more prevalent, we don't know. I mean, we can't say how many students go undiagnosed, or how many emerging adults go undiagnosed. But, we know that there are many.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Okay. Now, what were your questions going into this project?
Elisabeth O.:
I was really interested in this particular model of coping that looks at whether you engage with the source of a stress, or disengage from that stressor. A common example would be if you have a lot of test anxiety, which is rampant in the college population, right? If you're really nervous about taking tests, and you get really anxious about an upcoming test, and there's two different things you could do to cope with that, right? The first thing you could do is to study. Studying is more engaging with the source of the stress, the source being the impending test. Or, you can disengage, so you can avoid studying, you can do other things that distract you. You can deny that you have a test, right? And, then just walk in and just take the test.
Elisabeth O.:
I was really interested in looking at this difference between engaging or disengaging from the stressor, and how that relates to anxiety in this general, non clinical population of emerging adults. We did the study with undergrads here at UAlbany, and they're not a clinical population, so we didn't have diagnosis on any of these students. It was more of a, how can we look at these at a trend level.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Okay, and it was 210 emerging or collect students that you looked at, at UAlbany. Is that correct?
Elisabeth O.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Okay. Can you talk a little bit more about this relationship you've been referring to, between executive function, coping, and anxiety. And, perhaps just tell us what about this relationship was really interesting to you from a research perspective?
Elisabeth O.:
Sure, sure. As I had mentioned earlier I'm really interested in executive function, which you can think of as essentially cognitively driven self regulation. One of the aspects of executive function that I'm interested in is, working memory. That's essentially short term memory, but being able to use information that you're holding kind of at the tip of your tongue, and to be able to use that information to solve a problem, or make a decision. So, interested in working memory, and there's research to show that individuals who have better working memory or better executive function overall, are engaging in more of this engagement coping. So, more of this adaptive coping.
Elisabeth O.:
I was really interested in looking at if we can observe that in our college population, and I was particularly interested in looking at instead of self report measures, which we commonly use. Students will report on how they perceive their executive functioning, or how they perceive their coping skills.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Elisabeth O.:
But, I was really interested in combining self report with more objective measurements, so using measures, more task based measures of executive function. So, like computerized assessments to see how those more task based, inherent abilities might relate to their coping. Then, later to their anxiety, their level of anxiety.
Sarah O'Carroll:
That's really interesting. Now, I learned reading your research that there are two types of coping, adaptive and maladaptive, and-
Elisabeth O.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Sarah O'Carroll:
... You've been referring to engaging or disengaging. I read this as sort of a healthy, unhealthy, good, bad binary. What makes the unhealthy response or coping in fact bad, maladaptive?
Elisabeth O.:
Sure. I think often times we use adaptive and engagement interchangeably, and maladaptive and disengagement interchangeably.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Okay.
Elisabeth O.:
And so, I think ... But again, it's difficult because a lot of these coping behaviors, we engage in all of them. We can report sure, in one situation I'll use this engagement coping. I'll be actively coping with this source of stress. I'm going to study for that test, right? I'm going to have that conversation with that person that's stressing me out, right?
Elisabeth O.:
Or, you can, like maybe there's one day that you don't feel like doing that, and you're too stressed out and say you're going to go watch a movie, you're going to go pretend that it's not happening, kind of thing. And, it's very stress dependent, so there's a lot of things that are out of our control, right? If you're really stressed out about, you have two of your best friends are dating, and they're going through a breakup, and you're really stressed out that there's nothing that you can do about it, right? You can't change that.
Elisabeth O.:
So, the terms adaptive versus maladaptive are very case dependent, I would say. It's very dependent on the situation that you're in. I think that if you can take some control over the situation, that it does provide you with some self efficacy, and better self esteem, and that's of course related to anxiety. And so, if you're better able to do something about it, then that's more adaptive for you. But, certainly if there's nothing that you can do about it, doing more of those avoidance, kind of withdraw techniques can be better. But, I would say generally across the board that if you're withdrawing from something, if you're avoiding things, if you're denying the existence of something that's stressing you out, that you're going to feel less efficacious, and feel worse about the situation and yourself overtime.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Now, does denying that you have this test or avoiding, does that go into emotion focused coping? If so, why is that also an effectual coping strategy?
Elisabeth O.:
Yeah, so emotion focused coping is kind of this, a third level of coping. We've got the more adaptive engagement, versus maladaptive disengagement, and then we were really interested in looking at more of the emotion based coping. Which, in the literature is very, it's divided.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Hmm.
Elisabeth O.:
Some have cited that being able to express your emotions, and to tell somebody how you're feeling, and to really kind of have that emotional experience, and to allow yourself to feel those emotions that, that can be very good. But, that it can also be predictive of more of the depression, maladaptive kind of stuff that's going on. We were really interested in if we could tease that apart, so we used some different measures to get at what emotion coping is. We were looking more at emotional expression, and emotional processing. So not just that you're saying you're upset about something, but kind of going through and processing it, and thinking about why you're feeling that way.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Okay.
Elisabeth O.:
I think the way that we looked at it was more from an engagement type, if you're thinking of it as kind of the binary that you mentioned, the more the engaging with the emotion. Because, certainly you can feel emotions, and then withdraw, right?
Sarah O'Carroll:
Right.
Elisabeth O.:
Coping is messy, is my overall message. But, there are certainly things that you can do that are more adaptive versus maladaptive.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Now, what would you say was your most valuable, or several valuable takeaways from this study?
Elisabeth O.:
I think one is that if you can do something, do something. That's very simplistic, but really if you're feeling anxious about something and there is something that you can do, whether it is studying for the test, or maybe it's sitting and deep breathing, or it's talking to a friend and getting social support, or emotional support. If there is something that you can do actively to make yourself feel less anxious, but still be working towards your goal, then that's more predictive of better outcomes overtime. We know that anxiety is not just the ultimate outcome, right? If you are more ... there are things that you can do that'll make you more anxious, and that might get you to that point where you have an anxiety disorder.
Elisabeth O.:
But, then we also know that anxiety disorders are tied to a lot of worse outcomes overall. So, worse health outcomes, worse comorbidity, so having anxiety plus another disorder. And so, the idea is we want people to be engaging with the source of the stress so that they can make that change, and be more adaptive. We found that in our study, that better coping skills, stronger at adaptive coping skills was less predictive of anxiety. And also, we found that disengagement coping was the biggie, really. Overall, that if you are withdrawing, if you're avoiding, that, that is really ... that is going to predict worse outcomes for you. Even if you're expressing your emotions and not doing anything about it, that's better than withdrawing completely.
Elisabeth O.:
I think we can all think of some college students from our past who kind of would hole up, and just stay in their rooms, and not come out. That's really not good, because you're not engaging with your friends, or even seeking services. We often say that if you're feeling badly, if there's something that's really stressing you out, you don't have to be the only one dealing with that. You can go, and we have counseling services at the university, and most universities do have that support. I think that's another takeaway is that, if you feel like you can't cope with a situation on your own, then try and find a professional who can help you with that. It doesn't mean that you have to have a disorder, it doesn't mean that you have to be there forever. It's not like you go into a counseling session and have to be in counseling for the next two, three years.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Elisabeth O.:
But, they can help provide you with some basic skills. Typically those basic skills are self regulation, what can we teach you so that you can better cope with the anxiety. Because, often we feel anxiety to such a level that we can't take that first step, we can't pull out our notes and start studying for that exam. I think those are the biggies.
Elisabeth O.:
I think also, executive function can be changed so that you can have stronger executive function skills. We know that there are certain, especially computerized programs that can help train you. The more you practice, the better you can be.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Huh.
Elisabeth O.:
But, to an extent, right? We can teach coping skills much better than we can teach you to memorize things, and be able to hold onto that memory. I think if you have poor executive function, that does have a relationship with some worse outcomes overtime. But, that doesn't mean that it's directly setting you up for anything bad. Even if you have poor executive function and you may be less likely to engage in adaptive coping, that you can still be trained to learn these coping skills to do this mindfulness, to do this deep breathing, and practice this self regulation.
Elisabeth O.:
Although we know that there is that relationship between executive function and coping, it doesn't mean that you're going to develop anxiety overtime. I would say those are the major takeaways.
Sarah O'Carroll:
I feel like it might be easy to go on the slippery slope of, "Well I'm going to get worse, and I can't do anything, and I'm just going to continue not being able to succeed." But, you're saying that there are these little steps that you can take, and resources, and things that you can do to avoid that.
Elisabeth O.:
Absolutely, absolutely. And, it can be very simplistic too. You certainly have your level of anxiety, that it just interferes with your daily living, and makes it harder for you to even just to enjoy college. Because, I feel like the college experience can be very fulfilling-
Sarah O'Carroll:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Elisabeth O.:
... And, you can ... when we're in this period of I'm trying to figure out what I want to do, if you're not actively engaging with the world around you and trying to experience new things, if you're ending up withdrawing and avoiding all of these things then you are certainly not going to figure out what's going to be best for you. And so, none of that exploration happens, and it's very interfering. And so, we see people feeling worse about themselves, experiencing anxiety and depression. But, there are certainly resources on most campuses that would provide with extra supports, even like community groups, religious organizations, and counseling centers of course. There's a lot that can be done to help get you back on track, because again, that transition from being in high school, and living with your parents, and to living on a campus kind of on your own, can be very daunting. There's certainly supports and things that you can do to keep you on track.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), for sure. Now, going back to you personally, you're in your final year at UAlbany.
Elisabeth O.:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Sarah O'Carroll:
On campus. What is next for Elisabeth O'Rourke, following graduation?
Elisabeth O.:
My goal over the next couple of years, I'll be going on internship as part of my fifth year in my program. My goal is to work at an internship that's in a medical facility, so I'm really interested in over the next five, 10 years, working in a medical center and providing children, and adolescents with psychological services with counseling, and support. Again, going back to that coping skills, providing them with coping skills, and teaching them to use those coping skills, particularly in the face of more medically related problems. So, you have your kids who are dealing with diabetes, or gastrointestinal issues, or other medical problems. Cancer, right?
Elisabeth O.:
We've got kids who are dealing with that, and you can imagine that's a huge stressor for them. And, being able to be present with them when they're getting news about their disorder, or getting news about their medical problems, being able to teach them some basic skills to help them maybe not overcome that feeling of anxiety, or that overwhelmed feeling. But, being able to make it a little bit easier for them, so that's kind of my end goal.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Really meaningful work, and exciting things ahead. Elisabeth, thank you so much for being here.
Elisabeth O.:
Thank you so much.
Sarah O'Carroll:
Thank you for listening to the UAlbany News Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah O'Carroll, and that was Elisabeth O'Rourke, a PhD student in Clinical Psychology at UAlbany's College of Arts and Sciences. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by emailing us at MediaRelations@Albany.EDU. And, you can find us on Twitter @UAlbanyNews.