cowden HindashPage 1
Alexandra Hanah Cowden Hindash
University of South Florida, Department of Psychology, Mood and Emotion Lab
4202 E. Fowler Ave., PCD 2116, Tampa, FL. 33620 | (702) 232-8192 |
EDUCATION
University of South TampaAug 2013 - present
Doctoral Candidate in Clinical Psychology
Major Professor: Jonathan Rottenberg
Dissertation: An experimental examination of automatic interpretation biases in major depression
San Diego State UniversityMay 2010
Master of Arts in Psychology
Research Advisor: Nader Amir
Master Thesis: Interpretation in dysphoria
University of Colorado, Boulder
Baccalaureate in ArtsMay 2007
Major Field of study: Psychology
Graduated with Distinction
Clinical Skills
Intervention Skills – Total face to face hours = 442.25
Trained and supervised in the use of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (CBT) for depression and anxiety, Behavioral therapies such as Exposure and Response Prevention for Obsessive Compulsive Disorders and Specific Phobias, Habit Reversal Training to treat Tic, Excoriation, and Trichotillomania disorders. Collaborated with DCT to implement a Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills group in the department’s Psychological Services Center to treat individuals with cluster B personality disorders and at high risk of suicide and self-harm. Co-facilitated DBT group and currently providing peer supervision for new group facilitators and individual therapists.Exposure to mindfulness-based therapies for anxiety and as part of DBT skills training and Motivational Interviewing for dually diagnosed inpatients.
Psychodiagnostic Assessment Skills – Total face to face hours = 77.25
Trained to conduct clinical diagnostic interviews using the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV-TR (SCID) axis-I and axis-II, Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview – Diagnostic and Symptom Tracking formats, Personality Disorder Inventory – 4th edition, Clinician Administered PTSD Scale, administration and interpretation of personality self-report measures including the MMPI-2, MMPI-2 RF, and PAI. Also familiar with the administration and interpretation of an array of symptom reports such as the Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory – Second Edition, Beck Hopelessness Scale, Penn State Worry Questionnaire, and PTSD checklist for DSM-5.
Neuropsychological/Psychoeducational Assessment Skills – Total face to face hours = 147.75
Trained to conduct assessments using a variety of neuropsychological tests of memory, attention, motor skills, and abstract thinking abilities. Experience includes administering and interpreting the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV), Woodcock Johnson fourth edition test of achievement (WJ-IV ACH), cognition (WJ-IV COG), and oral language (WJ-IV OL), Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA), Trail Making Task, Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, Stroop, Brief Visual Memory Task, California Verbal Learning Test, and other memory tasks,Rey Osterreith Complex Figure, Facial Recognition, Boston Naming Task, Animal Naming Task, FAS task, and the Brief Inventory of Executive functioning (BRIEF).
Providing Feedback to Clients – Total face to face hours = 46.50
Clinical Experience
General Outpatient Psychotherapy/Neuropsychology Experience
Psychological Services Center – USF Tampa, FLOct 2014 – present
Intervention: Providing evidence-based treatments from a cognitive behavioral orientation to a range of community adult clients to treat anxiety, mood, eating, and personality disorders.Establishedan in-house weekly Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Group to treat severe psychopathology under the supervision of Dr. Edelyn Verona. Treatments provided include DBT skills training, cognitive behavioral treatments including skills related to distress tolerance, behavioral activation, cognitive restructuring. Other structured treatments include habit reversal training, exposure and response prevention, and interpersonal skills training.Peer supervision provided to new DBT skills Training Group Co-facilitators and to individual therapists.
Assessment: Conducting learning disorder, ADHD, psychodiagnostic, and neuropsychological assessments. Each assessment includes intelligence, achievement, and cognitive testing. As the Assessment Course Teaching Assistant, duties included learning and teaching administration of recently released tests (WISC-V and WJ-IV) and peer supervision of student practice administrations and report write-ups.
USF Health Psychiatry and Neuropsychology – USF Tampa, FLSept 2015 – June 2016
Neuropsychological testing: Training focused on the integration of information from patient interviews, medical records, imaging, and neuropsychological assessments to identify strengths and weaknesses supporting neurological and psychological functioning, diagnoses, and treatment recommendations. Experience included writing integrated reports (N=26), with patients ranging in age from 9-89. Participated in a weekly didactic consisting of reviews of neurology, neuroanatomy, specific neurological disorders, and training to conduct neurobehavioral exams. Assessments include MMPI-2, intelligence testing, achievement testing, memory testing, validity testing, and neurobehavioral exams (e.g., testing for visual neglect).
Behavioral Medicine Experience
Moffitt Cancer Center – Psychometrist/Patient Counseling extern – Tampa, FLSept 2015 – present
Assessment: Paid practicum as psychometrist under supervision of Dr. Margaret Booth-Jones assessing cognitive abilities and emotional functioning of cancer patients. Assessments include measures of anxiety, depression, and distress, brief assessments of cognitive abilities (Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status or Mattis Dementia Rating scale – second edition), tests of pre-morbid intelligence, color trails, Stroop, Conners’ Continuous Performance Test – Third Edition, Stroop, driving evaluations, and full neuropsychological testing for individuals with brain tumors or radiation treatment.Conducted psychosocial assessments for cancer survivors, including brief symptom history assessment, feedback, and providing feedback in conjunction with basic coping skills.
Rothman Center for Pediatric Neuropsychiatry – St. Petersburg, FLMay 2014 – June 2015
Assessment:Trained in administration and interpretation of psychological assessments of anxiety (e.g., Anxiety Disorders Inventory Schedule – Child and Parent; Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale) and behavioral disorders with children and adolescents.
Intervention:Treatments provided include habit reversal training, exposure and response prevention, and mindfulness and relaxation skills for anxiety disorders, autism spectrum disorders, and hoarding disorder.
Veteran Affairs Experience
James A. Haley Veterans Affairs HealthCare System – Acute Recovery Center Inpatient Unit – Tampa, FL Sept 2016 – present
Intervention:Training focuses on working within a psychiatric team to conduct assessments, brief therapeutic interventions, and run a DBT-based coping skills group. Patients present with a range of severe mental illnesses including dually diagnosed, depression, PTSD, substance abuse, psychotic disorders, and personality disorders. Majority of patients are dually diagnosed with complications from medical issues and personality disorders. Assessments include MMPI-2 RF or PAI as diagnostic and treatment outcome indicators, and the CAPS for assessment and documentation of PTSD. Emphasis on working in interdisciplinary teams, ethical dilemmas, and motivating change toward healthful behaviors and continuing care.
Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System – Palo Alto and Menlo Park campuses, CAJan 2011 – Jul 2013
Assessment: As the project manager for an RCT of phone-based motivational interviewing (PI: Christine Timko, Ph.D.), conducted over 1,600 hours of assessment with a dually-diagnosed veteran population. More than 600 hours consisted of one on one, multi-hour assessments conducted in the acute inpatient psychiatric ward. Clinical interviews included the Addiction Severity Index, Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview – both Diagnostic and Symptom Tracking versions, Timeline Follow Back, PTSD Checklist, and other measures of symptoms, treatment use, adherence and outcome, support systems, and attitudes towards treatment and change. Received training to conduct phone-based Motivational Interviewing.
Other Relevant Clinical Experiences
Mood and Emotion Lab – Tampa, FLAug 2013 – present
Administering Structured Clinical Interviews for the DSM-IV-TR (SCID), research version and Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview to assess participant eligibility for student dissertation projects. Supervision provided by and to peers in the administration of structured clinical interviews.
Clinical Workshop Trainings
VA Assessment of Suicide Risk and Crisis Management, Menlo Park, CAMarch 9, 2012
Learned VA protocol to assess for crisis and suicide risk, skills to quickly establish rapport, maintain contact, and motivational interviewing techniques to move past initial crisis into problem solving techniques.
A Taste of Motivational Interviewing, Tampa, FLOct 30, 2015
Speaker Karen Nicholson, PhD., from the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers, spoke to the purpose and semi-structure of Motivational Interviewing and led role play exercises to practice reflective statements, and non-directional persuasion tactics.
Introduction to DBT for Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder, Tampa, FLApr21, 2016
Speaker Carla D. Chugani, MA, LMHC, from Behavioral Tech, LLC, provided an introduction to the basic theoretical foundations of Dialectal Behavior Therapy with practical training in providing coaching calls and conducting chain-analyses.
REsearch EXPERIENCE
Mood and Emotion Lab – University of South Florida
Tampa, FLAug2013 - Present
Doctoral Candidate
Currently conducting collaborative archival data collection with Dr. Lauren Alloy from the Temple-Wisconsin Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression Project for analyses and expansion of manuscript examining the course of depressive symptoms over time. Current projects include: dissertation (proposed, data collection in progress);analyses examining confirmatory factor analysis of differing measures of interpretation biases as either automatic or elaborative; review article preparationdescribingthe differences and interactions between mood and emotionin revision with feedback from research mentor, Dr. Jonathan Rottenberg.
Center for Health Care Evaluation – VA Palo Alto Health Care SystemJan 2011 – July 2013
Palo Alto and Menlo Park, CA
Research Health Science Specialist
Project Manager for “Dual Diagnosis Inpatients: Telephone Monitoring RCT to Improve Outcomes” (PI: Christine Timko, PhD). Conduct baseline and follow up clinical interviews with veteran dually diagnosed psychiatry inpatients;manage and analyze data frommultiple projects for manuscript publication including rates of interpersonal violence and mutual help use among dually diagnosed veterans; create conference presentations concerning 12-facilitation; program computerized substance use assessment tools; train and coordinate research assistants.
Center for Understanding and Treating Anxiety – San Diego State UniversityAug 2008 – Jul 2010
San Diego, CA.
Master’s Student/Graduate Research Assistant
Responsible for: in-lab experimental data collection, designing information processing and mass screening questionnaire studies, data collection and analysis for master’s thesis – published in Cognitive Therapy and Research, conference presentations, and academic articles concerning experimental evaluations of attention biases in individuals with obsessive compulsive contamination fears, script editing for a computerized treatment for generalize anxiety disorders, stimuli generation and testing.
Publications
Panaite, V., Cowden Hindash, A., Bylsma, L. M., Small, B. J., Salomon, K., & Rottenberg, J. (2016). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity to a sad film predicts depression symptom improvement and symptomatic trajectory. International Journal of Psychophysiology,99, 108-113.
Cowden Hindash, A. H., & Rottenberg, J. (2015). Turning quickly on myself: Automatic interpretation biases in dysphoria are self-referent.Cognition and Emotion, 1-8.
Rottenberg, J. & Cowden Hindash, A. (2015). Emerging evidence for emotion context insensitivity in depression. Current Opinion in Psychology, 4, 1-5.
Woodhead, E., Cowden Hindash, A., & Timko C. (2013). Dual diagnosis, mutual-help use, and outcomes. Journal of Dual Diagnosis, 9(2), 158-164.
Cowden Hindash, A. & Amir, N. (2012). Negative interpretation bias in individuals with depressive symptoms. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 36, 502-511.Doi 10.1007/s10608-011-9397-4
Najmi, S., Cowden Hindash, A., & Amir, N. (2010). Executive control of attention in individuals with obsessive-compulsive symptoms.Depression and Anxiety, 27, 807-812. Doi 10.1002/da.20703
Manuscripts in Progress
Cowden Hindash, A. & Rottenberg, J. (under review). Moving towards the benign: Automatic interpretation bias modification in dysphoria.
Cowden Hindash, A. & Kiselica, A.(in revision). Reliability Generalization of the Difficulties with Emotion Regulation Scale.
Cowden Hindash, A. & Rottenberg, J. (writing in progress). Regulating mood rather than emotion: Clinical importance of differenciating mood from emotion in depression and psychopathology.
Panaite, V., Whitington, A., Cowden Hindash, A.H., O’Leary, K., Schaefer, L.M., & Rottenberg, J. (providing feedback on drafts). Sadness reactivity across positive contexts in the lab and daily life in depression.
Conference PResentations
Cowden Hindash, A.H. & Rottenberg, J. (Oct 2016). Changes in automatic interpretation biases from a single training session predict reduced reactivity to an experimental stressor. Post submitted to annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, New York City, NY.
Colontonio, A., Cowden Hindash, A.H., Goff, T., & Rottenberg, J. (Oct 2016). Perceived Stress and Emotion Regulation: Mediating factors against stress in dysphoric individuals. Post submitted to annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, New York City, NY.
Cowden Hindash, A.H., Balouch, M., & Rottenberg, J. (Oct 2016). Perceived ability to cope with daily stressors moderates the effect of negative self-perception in response to a specific failure. Post submitted to annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, New York City, NY.
Panaite, V., Whitington, A., Cowden Hindash, A.H., O’Leary, K., Schaefer, L.M., & Rottenberg, J. (Oct 2016). Sadness reactivity across positive contexts in depression. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Research in Psychopathology, Baltimore, MD.
Cowden Hindash, A. & Rottenberg, J. (submitted for Nov 2015). Automatic Negative Interpretation Biases in Depression are Self-Referent. Oral presentation in “Cognitive biases in depression: Interpretation and Self-relevancy” Symposium submitted to annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Chicago, IL. Symposium chair.
Woerner, M., Cowden Hindash, A., & Rottenberg, J. (submitted for Nov 2015). Emotion regulation as mediator for interpretation biases in dysphoria. Poster submitted to annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Chicago, IL.
Cowden Hindash, A. & Rottenberg, J. (accepted for July 2015).Mood stability predicts worse course of major depressive episode over 30 weeks. Poster accepted to biennial meeting of the International Society of Research in Emotion, Geneva, Switzerland.
Cowden Hindash, A., & Amir, N. (March 2010). Automatic interpretation in dysphoria. Oral presentation presented in “Behavioral Responses in Health Care” Symposium at the San Diego State Student Research Symposium, San Diego, CA.
Cowden Hindash, A., & Amir, N. (November 2010). Single session interpretation modification in dysphoria. Poster presentedat the annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, San Francisco, CA.
Cowden Hindash, A., Barrett, C., Bomyea, J., & Amir, N. (November 2009). Evaluating the effectiveness of a single-session interpretation modification program. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, New York, NY.
Cowden Hindash, A., Jensen, B., & Amir, N. (November 2010). Automatic negative interpretation biases in dysphoria. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, San Francisco, CA.
Cowden Hindash, A. & Latimer, J. (April 2012).Telephone Monitoring RCT with Dually Diagnosed Psychiatric Inpatients.Oral presentation presented at the Second Annual Stanford University, Veterans Affairs Center for Health Care Evaluation and National Center for PTSD Research Assistant Conference, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Menlo Park, CA.
Cowden Hindash, A., Latimer, J., & Timko, C. (June 2012). Mutual-Help participation and 1-year outcomes in veterans dually diagnosed with bipolar or unipolar depression. Poster presented at the 2012 Research Society on alcoholism Scientific Meeting, San Francisco, CA.
Cowden Hindash, A., Najmi, S., Amir, N. (March 2009). Executive control of attention in obsessive compulsive disorder.Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, Albuquerque, NM.
Lin, S., Cowden Hindash, A., & Timko, C. (June 2012). Benefits of mutual-help groups for dually diagnosed patients. Poster presented at the 2012 Research Society on Alcoholism Scientific Meeting, San Francisco, CA.
Panaite, V., Bylsma, L.M., Cowden Hindash, A., Salomon, K., & Rottenberg, J. (May 2014). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity to a sad film and a speech stressor predicts depression symptom improvement over 30 weeks. Poster presented at the 2014 Association for Psychological Science Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA.
Bomyea, J., Tobin, A., Cowden Hindash, A., Beard, C., & Amir, N. (November 2008). Time course of interpretation bias change in social anxiety. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Orlando, FL.
Thompson, K., Cowden Hindash, A., Barrett, C., Najmi, S., Sunshine-Hill, A., & Amir, N. (November 2008). Comparing computer-based assessments of attention bias in obsessive compulsive disorder. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, Orlando, FL.
Statistical skills
Trained in using SPSS, SAS, and MPlus with some experience using R to conduct ANOVA, Regression, Hierarchical Linear Modeling, Multilevel Modeling, Logistic Growth Curve Modeling, and Structural Equation Modeling.
Workshop Training
Curren-Bauer Analytics Multilevel Modeling Workshop, Chapel Hill, NC June 2-6, 2014
Learned to build, test, and run complex hierarchical models with both longitudinal and cross sectional data. Special section on analysis of intensive longitudinal data (e.g. experience sampling).
Awards
Curren Bauer Analytics Student Tuition Scholarship. ($800). Received April 2014. Award provided tuition to attend the Curren Bauer Analytics Multilevel Modeling Workshop in June 2014. The MLM workshop granted a greater understanding of the theory, method, and interpretation of MLM statistics.
Dr. Sylvia Carra Clinical Psychology Graduate Student Research Fellowship. ($2500). Received May 2015. Award provided funding to create documentation for running the Psychology department SmartEye Eye Tracking machine in efforts to integrate physiological measures into student research more generally.
Submitted
APA Science Directorate Dissertation Research Award. ($1000-$3000). Applied Sept. 2016. Selected as one of three application candidates by USF Psychology department Awards committee. This award will fund materials for running the dissertation project as well as paying research participants.
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Course Instructor: Abnormal Psychology – University of South Florida
Summer 2015/2016, Fall 2015
Design course objectives, materials, lectures, assignments, and exams. Course theme indicated the changing definitions of normal and abnormal behaviors with particular focus on how standards are defined by the APA and differ across cultures and genders. Students read scientific memoirs and updated one research point from the memoir in a paper assignment. Students were randomly assigned to groups to research a psychological disorder and create a video which accurately describes the disorder, symptoms, base rates in society, and best treatment options.