Lab Director: Sasha Rudenstine, Ph.D.
The INTERSECT Lab studies how people adapt to ongoing stress and adversity across the lifespan, with a focus on historically marginalized urban communities. Founded in 2015 by Dr. Sasha Rudenstine, the lab brings together clinical psychology, developmental psychopathology, and epidemiology around one idea: the capacity to adapt, or the ability to maintain psychological health amid ongoing stress exposure.
We aim to examine three distinct, yet intersecting, dimensions of health:
1. Stress and Mental Health Across the Lifespan How do daily, chronic, and cumulative stressors shape mental health over time? Using longitudinal and epidemiological data, including a three-wave study of CUNY students during COVID-19, we examine the capacities that buffer stress: emotional awareness, perceived social support, and coping. Current work looks at loneliness, long COVID, and childhood adversity.
2. Psychotherapy Processes and Outcomes in Community Settings For whom does psychotherapy work and why? We seek to investigate these questions through 3 programs:
Psychotherapy Evaluation and Clinical Effectiveness (PEACE): adult treatment outcomes, tracked every four months
Child Health and Psychotherapy Program (CHAP): children and caregivers, assessed every six months
Therapeutic Alliance Assessment Program (TAAP): session-by-session, video-recorded alliance research
3. Prevention Strategies to Foster Psychological Health We are developing brief, scalable interventions that build emotional awareness, coping, and flexibility before distress sets in.
