Tag Archive for: psychology

Behind the Science: Helping Individuals with Eating Disorders


Interviewee: Amané Halicki-Asakawa, B.A. | Authors/Editors: Negin Nia & Arrthy Thayaparan (Blog Co-coordinators) 

Published: March 25th, 2022

Editor’s Note: This blog post discusses eating disorders. If you or someone you know is struggling, call 1-866-NEDIC-20 or visit NEDIC.

In this week’s blog series, Behind the Science, we speak to Amané Halicki-Asakawa, a graduate student in clinical psychology at the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO). Amané is working in the women’s health field with the aim of helping folks with eating disorders. Read more to better understand how her project is helping to create  tangible change, and her advice for IBPOC in the field wishing to pursue research. 

Can you please tell us about your research?

I’m primarily interested in service transformation. So, how to create a tangible change for people in the community, particularly those who live in the Okanagan. 

My research is focused on eating disorders and increasing accessibility to eating disorder services, particularly using things like technology and mobile apps. My research is through the Psychopathology Lifespan and Neuropsychology (PLAN) Laboratory at UBCO. Our lab’s primary focus is on neuropsychology and clinical psychology. The research is really broad, it covers things like stroke research, hemispatial neglect, and also a lot of body image and eating disorder research. 

What are you currently working on?

My master’s thesis is focused on adapting a self-help mobile phone app for use within an eating disorder context. The goal is to provide people with eating disorders who are waitlisted for treatment  an interim service while they’re waiting. The pandemic has increased waitlist lengths dramatically, which were already really long prior to COVID, and so eating disorder treatments are very, very inaccessible for a lot of people right now. The aim of that project is to try to make sure that people have some sort of support, so  that they aren’t being forgotten in the system. 

What got you interested in this research? 

As a woman and being subjected to a lot of cultural issues surrounding thin idealization, I was drawn naturally to  eating disorders. They appear a lot in popular culture, and once you dig under the surface a little bit, you realize that there’s so much more going on that drives these disorders. There is a lot of really serious underlying stuff related to emotion, regulation, identity, all sorts of stuff. So, I think learning about the severity, complexity, and the existing treatment gaps made me realize how important they are to study. 

What impact do you hope your research will have in the women’s health field and beyond?

I really want my research to have a tangible outcome. I think that when participants are involved in your research, you’re asking them for something. They are providing their time and sharing  upsetting, really intense things that they’re going through – especially in mental health research. I just want to make sure that the participants in my studies  are able to get something back. Also, we’re in a transforming world, and technology is becoming so much more accessible and mainstream. My hope with projects like this is to show that there can be ways to access and deliver services that aren’t being used right now. I want people to know that these things can actually fill in the gaps and create a bridge so that people can access the treatments that they need.

As a IBPOC in the science field, what advice do you have for future IBPOC academics wanting to pursue a similar path?

It’s really important to find mentorship in people who look like you and who’ve shared your experiences. I think it can be really helpful to seek out mentors, even colleagues and peers. They don’t have to be the highest members of academia, they can even be grad students who are a little bit older than you are, or research assistants at labs doing research that you are interested in. Being a racialized person in academia   can be very isolating, especially as most institutions lack diversity.   Finding those supports and people who can empathize with your experiences and your specific struggles is incredibly helpful. I’ve sought out many mentors in the past who have helped me and continue to help me,  and without their support it would have been a lot harder than it needed to be.

What is the best way for people to learn more about your work?

Feel free to connect with me through Twitter (@amanekha), and check out our lab website to keep up to date with our research.

Behind the Science: The Intersection of Social and Health Psychology


Authors: Negin Nia and Arrthy Thayaparan (Blog Coordinators) || Interviewing: Frances Chen, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of British Columbia

Published: November 26th, 2021

COVID-19 has made our social interactions even more isolated and reliant on technology. This month on Behind the Science, we speak to Frances Chen, Associate Professor of Psychology at University of British Columbia, exploring the intersection of social and health psychology linking our social lives (especially online), mental health and physical health. 

Could you describe what you are pursuing in your research? 

I’m interested in how we develop and manage our social relationships and how our social lives influence our health. This includes both good effects and bad effects. Good effects include when we’re able to receive social support from our loved ones, or when we feel a sense of belonging in our communities. Bad effects could include when we have a conflict with somebody that we care about, or when we feel lonely, socially isolated, or experience social rejection. In my lab, we try to advance scientific understanding of these phenomena.

It is also important to mention that women and men can experience different kinds of challenges when navigating social relationships. Sociocultural norms can play into those different challenges that women and men face, but also biological factors such as how our hormones influence our social behaviour or emotional reactions.

What got you interested in pursuing this research? 

There’s a saying, “all research is ME-search.” I would say that’s true of me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always cared deeply about social connection. I believe it’s a very powerful part of what it means to be a human being. When you have experiences and relationships where you feel seen, accepted, loved, and appreciated, those are incredibly powerful experiences. On the other hand, if you are going through a relationship conflict or a breakup with a romantic partner, if you’re feeling socially isolated, or you don’t have social support and a strong social network to lean on, it can feel emotionally devastating. I’ve personally observed how strongly social connections influence my own health and well-being, and I’ve also observed that in so many other people’s lives. 

What sparked your interest in women’s health?

The more I look at these questions that I’m pursuing, the more I see that there are both social and cultural factors, and also potentially biological factors, that play into some differences in how women and men experience social relationships. I think it’s important to consider those potential differences because if our ultimate goal is to improve the mental health and physical health of people of different sexes and genders, then we need to be aware of these kinds of nuances.

In one line of work in my lab, we are investigating why depression and anxiety tend to be more common experiences for women than men. To investigate this, we are currently running a large-scale prospective study where we’re tracking the emotions and social functioning of young women during their teenage years. We’re collecting a bunch of different metrics, including data on their changing hormones and social experiences, to help us understand some of these questions around women’s mental health better.

What impact do you hope your research will have on today’s world and also in the future?

I think that loneliness and social isolation are increasingly common experiences. This may be in part a side effect of globalization. People move around a lot more than they did in the past, which might cause them to uproot themselves from a social community and have to make new connections. 

Another factor might be how we increasingly seem to be replacing our in-person face-to-face interactions with interactions on our smartphones and computers. Although technological advances have created opportunities for connections that didn’t exist for past generations, they are also a double-edged sword. The COVID-19 pandemic has made many of us realize that these computer-mediated ways of connecting aren’t a perfect replacement for our in-person interactions. In today’s world and into the future, it’ll be increasingly important to ask and seek answers to these questions around how we can kind of manage to stay socially connected, despite these new challenges that we’re facing.