My goal is to develop interventions that improve the mental health of families in which a parent has psychopathology. Mental health struggles are often passed on from parents to their children – but that is preventable and parents need some support in that.
My name is Yoel Everett, I moved here in 2017 with my wife and son from Switzerland to pursue a PhD in Clinical Psychology. Since then, we have had another child and built a whole new life here. I am a 6th year graduate student and work in Dr. Maureen Zalewski's Parent Mental Health Research Clinic.
During my undergraduate studies at Tel Aviv University I worked as a parent training coach at an Israeli medical center to help parents reduce their children's disruptive behaviors. Many benefited from the parenting program, however I noticed that parents who were dealing with mental health difficulties of their own (e.g. substance use, depression) often didn't get the same benefits. Their children's disruptive behavior fed into parenting stress and mental health symptoms, which led to less effective parenting, and more disruptive child behavior. This opened my eyes to the need to address parental mental health within parenting programs and to address parenting challenges within adult-focused treatments.
Questions and Answers
What are you studying?
My research is focused on dual-generation treatment approaches that address the impact of parental mental health on parenting and children's mental health. Specifically, I am developing and testing a group-based psychotherapeutic intervention for parents of preschoolers that targets both parental mental health and parenting quality, in order to improve parent and child mental health.
The intervention integrates two well established treatments: 1) Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills (DBT Skills) and 2) Parent Training (PT). We are conducting a pilot study that is funded by the Center on Parenting and Opioids here at UO and supported by a T32 Fellowship from NYU's Behavioral Sciences Training in Drug Abuse Research Program. The preliminary results are promising and parents report improvements in their own mental health, their parenting and their children's behavior. To me, what is most meaningful about the work is that it fills an important need to provide an integrated parent mental health + parenting program for families in which a parent has mental health difficulties, and who are often lacking appropriate and effective treatment options.
What impact would you like your work to have?
Most adults with a mental health disorder are parents, and yet most adult mental health treatments do not address parenting difficulties. There are excellent evidence-based parenting programs that can address the emotional and behavioral difficulties of children - however these programs are less effective for parents with psychopathology and they do not typically address parent mental health.
The DBT Skills + PT program I am developing fills this gap by addressing both parent mental health and parenting quality in a single group-based intervention. Moreover, the program is applicable to a wide range of parent mental health diagnoses because it aims to improve parental emotion regulation (which is a transdiagnostic feature of many psychopathologies - e.g. mood disorders, anxiety, substance misuse, ADHD, personality disorders). I hope this program can help many parents who struggle with mental health difficulties as well as their children, who can be at greater risk of developing mental health disorders themselves.
Who inspires and motivates you?
My wife inspires and motivates me - she supports our family while I pursue these lengthy studies and this whole "moving to America" "grad school adventure" is in large part possible thanks to her. I am also very inspired by the parents who have participated in the DBT Skills + PT program. They devote a lot of time and effort to making significant life changes to improve their own lives and the lives of their children, and then in addition to that participate in the research side of the study, which can be tedious (completing lengthy interviews, weekly questionnaires, etc.). Their input on the intervention is invaluable in informing future iterations of DBT Skills + PT.
How do you balance your studies with other areas of your life?
It can be challenging to juggle family responsibilities with my studies, but at the same time, having kids provides a lot of structure that creates a work-life balance. I focus intently on work when my kids are at school/daycare, but once they are home - my work time is generally over. Sometimes that's difficult because there's more work to do and not enough time to do it. That just means that I have to be better at planning my work schedule and following through on it. Overall, I feel it provides a healthier work-life balance in my case. I also feel fortunate to have a supportive family as I go through the long, windy, roller coaster ride of getting a PhD. Additionally, being a parent myself has been very helpful and informative to my work as a parenting researcher, as I have a first-hand understanding of many of the parenting challenges faced by the DBT Skills + PT participants.
Where is your favorite place on campus to study, find inspiration, garner motivation, or stay focused?
We have a nice communal lab space to work in and I've enjoyed returning to work there this year. I also recently discovered that the law library is a really nice, quiet space to work in with very comfortable chairs.
What advice do you have for future students?
For those wanting to be independent researchers - I highly recommend taking a grant writing course and applying as much as possible for different grant funding opportunities. It's a great skill to hone. Also, join a hiring committee if you get the chance. It really does provide great insight into what's ahead after grad school, and what you might do now to make yourself more competitive later. I also want to say that our GTFF union is incredible. Support it and use it as a resource. Finally, I’d like to put in a plug for the UO Psychology Clinic which offers excellent evidence-based mental health care to students and community members (and it's where clinical psychology students like me get their training): https://psychology.uoregon.edu/welcome/clinic.