Health and Behavior: Monitoring Interactions in Therapeutic Relationships

Mentor: Paul Peluso, Ph.D.

Student: Kirielle Singarajah

Home Institution: Duke University

Kirielle Singarajah worked with Dr. Paul Peluso and his team on the Monitoring Interactions in Therapeutic Relationships REU project. They researched the dynamics of the therapist-client relationship, taking an empirical approach and mathematically modeling the dynamics of the system using nonlinear dynamical equations, with the hope of unveiling a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the dyad and its relation to therapeutic success/failure. Kirielle’s part in the project was to use R and MATLAB to analyze data, generate graphs to illustrate the dynamics of therapy sessions and apply cross-recurrence quantitative analysis (CRQA) to time series data to assess temporal correspondence between therapist and client behavior and to explore any correlations this has with successful/unsuccessful therapeutic relationships.

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