Susan Orsillo, Ph.D

Associate Professor of Psychology
M.A., Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology) University at Albany, State University of New York; Internship and postdoctoral work at National Center for PTSD: Behavioral Sciences Division and Tufts University School of Medicine/Boston Department of Veterans Affairs Psychology Internship Consortium.

Specialty Areas

Acceptance and mindfulness; acceptance-based behavior therapy, trauma and PTSD, anxiety disorders, emotional responding.

I am primarily interesting in developing and refining acceptance-based behavior therapy (ABBT) approaches to treating chronic anxiety disorders.  Acceptance-based behavior therapy involves integrating acceptance and mindfulness-based approaches (such as ACT, MBCT, DBT and MBSR) with more traditionally behavioral approaches to therapy (e.g., psychoeducation, skills training, exposure therapy).  Most recently, Liz Roemer and I received funding from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a randomized control trial comparing ABBT to applied relaxation for the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder.  Also, I have worked with several of my graduate students to develop acceptance-based prevention programs.  One student created a program aimed at decreasing relational aggression among middle schoolers and another focused on reducing the risk of sexual assault among college students.  My second research interest involves experimentally examining the nature and parameters of the constructs that I am targeting in my treatment development.  Specifically, I research the relationship between several domains of emotional responding including emotional avoidance, suppression, and strategic withholding of emotion across several channels of responding including self-report, facial expression, psychophysiological responding and narrative expression. I am interested in examining how patterns of emotional responding are related to exposure to interpersonal trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, and to general psychopathology.

Please click here to view the Acceptance, Mindfulness, and Emotion Lab’s Research Web Page

Selected Publications

Roemer, L., Orsillo, S.M., & Salters-Pedneault, K. (in press). Efficacy of an acceptance-based behavior therapy for generalized anxiety disorder: Evaluation in a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

Roemer, L., & Orsillo, S.M. (in press). Mindfulness and acceptance-based behavior al therapy in practice. New York: Guilford. 

Orsillo, S.M., Theodore-Oklota, Luterek, & Plumb (2007).  The development and psychometric evaluation of the Emotional Reactivity and Numbing Scale (ERNS). Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 195, 830-836. 

Schnurr, P.P., Friedman, M.J., Engel, C.C., Foa, E.B., Shea, M.T., Chow, B.K., Resick, P.A., Thurston, V., Orsillo, S.M., Haug, R., Turner, C. & Bernardy, N. (2007). Cognitive-Behavioral therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder in women: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 297, 820-830. 

Orsillo, S.M.  & Roemer, L. (2005). Acceptance and mindfulness-based approaches to anxiety: Conceptualization and treatment. New York: Springer.