Research Internship: Child maltreatment and interoception

The Chair of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology has an immediate opening for two master's theses on “Child maltreatment and interoception.”

Internationally, about one in four children experiences adversity. This makes child maltreatment one of the most influential risks for adverse mental health outcomes: Children who experience adversity are three times more likely to develop psychopathology than their peers without such experiences. In this way, child maltreatment contributes significantly to the development of approximately half of psychological disorders.

Interoception is a basis for emotion processing and, if impaired, a significant risk factor for mental illness. Interoception is the inner "sense" that enables us to perceive and understand the subtle signals of our body. To date, however, the relationship between child maltreatment and interoception has hardly been investigated, with only one study assessing a pediatric sample. In addition, underlying mechanisms are also largely unexplored. This would be highly relevant for targeted prevention and therapy. As part of our current project, we therefore use a multi-method approach to investigate the extent to which experiences of child maltreatment are associated with impairments in interoception and to what extent these differences are associated with mental health issues. As part of this project, students will receive detailed training and close mentoring. Students will work with adolescents, aiding in recruitment, administering questionnaires, and gaining experience in behavorial tasks

If you are interested, please contact Julia Ditzer, email: .