Faculty

Paul A Pilkonis, PhD

Paul A Pilkonis, PhD

Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology

Contact Details

3811 O'Hara St.
Pittsburgh
 
PA
 
15213
Email

Education & Training

PhD
Psychology, Stanford University

Professional Affiliations

Fellow, Association for Psychological Science
Member, American Psychological Association
Member, International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders

Selected Honors & Awards

Walter Klopfer Award, Society for Personality Assessment
Outstanding Clinical Educator Award, Society of Clinical Psychology (Division 12), American Psychological Association
Early Career Contribution Award, Society for Psychotherapy Research

Research Interests

Personality disorders; Psychometrics; Treatment outcome research
Selected Research Publications & Products
  1. Meyer, B., & Pilkonis, P. A. (2005). An attachment model of personality disorders. In M. Lenzenweger & J. F. Clarkin (Eds.), Major theories of personality disorders (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.
  2. Pilkonis, P. A., Hallquist, M. N., Morse, J. Q., & Stepp, S. D. (2011). Striking the (im)proper balance between scientific advances and clinical utility: Commentary on the DSM-5 proposal for personality disorders. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 2, 68-82. PMID: 21804929 PMCID: PMC3143499
  3. Pilkonis, P. A., Choi, S. W., Reise, S. P., Stover, A. M., Riley, W. T., & Cella, D. (2011). Item banks for measuring emotional distress from the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS): Depression, anxiety, and anger. Assessment, 18, 263-283. PMID: 21697139 PMCID: PMC3153635
  4. Ross, J. M., Girard, J. M., Wright, A. G. C., Beeney, J. E., Scott, L. N., Hallquist, M. N., Lazarus, S. A., Stepp, S. D., & Pilkonis, P. A. (2017). Momentary patterns of covariation between specific affects and interpersonal behavior: Linking relationship science and personality assessment. Psychological Assessment, 29, 123-134. PMID: 27148786 PMCID: PMC5097701
  5. Pilkonis, P. A., Kim, Y., Proietti, J. M., & Barkham, M. (1996). Scales for personality disorders developed from the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems. Journal of Personality Disorders, 10, 355-369.

Clinical Interests

Treatment of personality disorders

Education Interests

Research mentorship; Faculty career development
Selected Education Publications & Products
  1. Reynolds, C. F., III, Pilkonis, P. A., Kupfer, D. J., Dunn, L. O., & Pincus, H. A. (2007). Training future generations of mental health researchers: Devising strategies for tough times. Academic Psychiatry, 31, 152-159. PMID: 17344458, PMCID: PMC2746642
  2. Kupfer, D. J., Murphree, A., Pilkonis, P. A., Cameron, J., Giang, R. T., Dodds, N., & Godard, K. (2014). Using peer review to improve research and promote collaboration. Academic Psychiatry, 38, 5-10. PMID: 24449224 PMCID: PMC3944074

Pitt Psychiatry Awarded $11.5M National Institute of Mental Health Center Grant Focused on Investigating Emotional and Mental Health in Autistic Adults

ACE Center Grant Investigators

The National Institute of Mental Health has awarded the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry an Autism Center of Excellence (P50) grant to fund “Mental Health in Autistic Adults: An RDoC Approach.” The University of Pittsburgh Autism Center of Excellence (ACE) will be led by Carla Mazefsky, PhD (Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Clinical and Translational Science). The University of Pittsburgh...

Pitt Psychiatry Investigators Study Affective Dynamics Across Internalizing and Externalizing Dimensions of Psychopathology

Scott et al. Clinical Psychological Science 2020

Dysregulated affective dynamics (i.e., how emotions ebb and flow over time) have most often been studied among people with a given disorder compared to an unaffected control group. However, this approach has yielded inconsistent findings because many emotional states are seen across multiple psychopathologies. In fact, research has shown that psychiatric disorders are organized by evidence of internalizing (e.g...

Emotion Dysregulation Measure Designed for Autism Outperforms Existing Measures in a General Youth Population

Mazefsky et al. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology 2020

Tools that help psychiatrists and psychologists measure emotion dysregulation—the inability to effectively modulate the intensity or duration of emotional responses—are critical to the diagnosis and treatment of numerous psychiatric disorders. However, for youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), scientists have questioned the suitability of existing measures, given that young people with ASD can have highly...

Dr. Carla Mazefsky and Department Faculty Members Develop and Validate Sensitive Measure of Emotion Regulation in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Dr. Carla Mazefsky

Carla Mazefsky, PhD, along with Paul Pilkonis, PhD and other colleagues recently published an article, “The Emotion Dysregulation Inventory: Psychometric Properties and Item Response Theory Calibration in an Autism Spectrum Disorder Sample,” in Autism Research. Dr. Mazefsky answers some pertinent questions regarding the study below. 1. What was the goal of your research? Poor emotion regulation, defined as...

14th Annual Department of Psychiatry Research Day Celebrates Outstanding Science, Mentorship, and Academic Service

The Department of Psychiatry hosted its 14th Annual Research Day on June 5, 2014 at the University Club in Oakland, attracting the largest number of participants in the history of the event. Dr. David Lewis, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and the UPMC Endowed Professor in Translational Neuroscience, welcomed over 300 registered guests to this year's event. Research Day is an important tradition that...