Student Spotlight Award Recipient - Adam Kuczynski

Student Spotlight Award Recipient - Adam Kuczynski

Congratulations to Adam Kuczynskion being selected as the Student Spotlight Award winner for September 2020!

The purpose of this award is to highlight students who are doing important work in the CBS community whether for research, clinical, and/or volunteer-humanitarian efforts. This is a way to highlight their achievements, let the ACBS community know important work students are doing, and possibly provide a platform for mentoring/collaboration/professional development/conversations around highlighted areas.

Learn more about Adam:

Background of CBS Research/Clinical/Volunteering efforts/achievements:
I am, at my core, a functional contextualist. My first experience in research was with Dr. Marsha Linehan, where I workid on a federally funded randomized trial of DBT for suicidal and self-harming adolescents. It was there where I was trained to view behavior from a functional perspective, influenced greatly by other third-wave therapies such as ACT and FAP. Shortly thereafter, I began working with Drs. Kohlenberg and Tsai in their efforts to establish a stronger empirical literature for FAP. Fast forward several years and I am now a fifth year graduate student at the University of Washington, where I have continued to pursue contextual-behavioral research agenda. For my master’s thesis, I led a multi-site scale development project aimed at measuring intimate relational functioning for use in FAP outcomes research. Since then, I have worked to develop CBS-informed interventions for couples and therapists at high risk of burnout, evaluated the current state of empirical research on FAP, and pursued research that aims to reduce the perpetration of racial microaggressions. Now, I am a lead researcher and study therapist on the largest-to-date randomized trial of FAP. My clinical work is also heavily influenced by CBS. I have worked with several clients in both inpatient and outpatient settings using ACT, FAP, and comprehensive DBT. I have reviewed several manuscript submissions for JCBS and served as the student representative for the FAP special interest group of ACBS since 2015. Last year, I served as a reviewer for the ACBS student spotlight awards.

Autobiography:
I am incredibly fortunate for the opportunities offered to me throughout my lifetime. As an undergraduate at the University of Washington, I worked with Dr. Marsha Linehan on a federally funded trial of DBT for adolescents who, despite their best efforts, struggled to build worth living. Shortly thereafter, Drs. Robert Kohlenberg and Mavis Tsai took me into their lab and trained me in the fundamental principles of FAP and contextual behavioral science. When Dr. Jonathan Kanter moved to the University of Washington, he hired me as his first research coordinator and then graduate student, we we have worked together on a variety of research projects aimed at improving social functioning and decreasing the perpetration of racial microaggressions. I am truly a product of my social environment and have worked diligently in my graduate career to pass my fortune along, particularly for underrepresented individuals in psychological science (e.g., students of color, first-generation students). For my dissertation, I am using idiographic research methods to understand how momentary feelings of loneliness are associated with changes in depressive symptomatology and hope to inform contextual-behavioral treatment efforts aimed at reducing the burden of these afflictions.

Future goals:
After graduate school, I hope to continue pursuing a research agenda focused on the ways in which social functioning outcomes can be improved by bridging the gap between CBS and relationship science.

Publications:

  • Kuczynski, A. M., Kanter, J. W., & Robinaugh, D. J. (2019). Differential associations between interpersonal variables and quality-of-life in a sample of college students. Quality of Life Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-019-02298-3
  • Kuczynski, A. M., Kanter, J. W., Wetterneck, C. T., Olaz, F. O., Singh, R. S., Lee, E. B., … Corey, M. D. (2019). Measuring intimacy as a contextual-behavioral process: Psychometric development and evaluation of the Awareness, Courage, and Responsiveness Scale. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2019.02.004
  • Reyes Ortega, M. A., Kuczynski, A. M., Kanter, J. W., de Montis, I. A., & Santos, M. M. (2019). A preliminary test of a social connectedness burnout intervention for Mexican mental health professionals. The Psychological Record, 69(2), 267-276. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-019-00338-5
  • Kanter, J. W., Kuczynski, A. M., Tsai, M., & Kohlenberg, R. J. (2018). A brief contextual-behavioral intervention to improve relationships: A randomized trial. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 10, 75-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2018.09.001
  • Kanter, J. W., Manbeck, K. E., Kuczynski, A. M., Maitland, D .W. M., Villas-Bôas, A., & Reyes Ortega, M. A. (2017). A comprehensive review of research on Functional Analytic Psychotherapy. Clinical Psychology Review, 58, 141-156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2017.09.010
  • Kanter, J. W., Williams, M. T., Kuczynski, A. M., Manbeck, K. E., Debreaux, M., & Rosen, D. C. (2017). A preliminary report on the relationship between microaggressions against Black people and racism among White college students. Race and Social Problems, 9(4), 291-299. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-017-9214-0
  • Maitland, D. W. M., Kanter, J. W., Manbeck, K. E., & Kuczynski, A. M. (2017). Relationship science informed clinically relevant behaviors in Functional Analytic Psychotherapy: The Awareness, Courage, and Love Model. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 6(4), 347-359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2017.07.002
  • Maitland, D. W. M., Kanter, J. W., Tsai, M., Kuczynski, A. M., Manbeck, K. E., & Kohlenberg, R. J. (2016). Preliminary findings on the effects of online Functional Analytic Psychotherapy training on therapist competency. The Psychological Record, 66(4), 627-637. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-016-0198-8
  • Haworth, K., Kanter, J. W., Tsai, M., Kuczynski, A. M., Rae, J. R., & Kohlenberg, R. J. (2015). Reinforcement matters: A preliminary, laboratory-based component-process analysis of Functional Analytic Psychotherapy's model of social connection. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 4(4), 281-291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2015.08.003
  • Kohlenberg, R. J., Tsai, M., Kuczynski, A. M., Rae, J. R., Lagbas, E. Lo, J., & Kanter, J. W. (2015). A brief, interpersonally oriented mindfulness intervention incorporating Functional Analytic Psychotherapy's model of awareness, courage and love. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 4(2), 107-111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcbs.2015.03.003
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