Social Anxiety and School Refusal in Adolescence

PIs

Prof. Michiel Westenberg

Prof. Michiel Westenberg is the head of the laboratory. He has a long lasting interest in adolescent development and, more specifically, social anxiety in adolescence. Starting from a clinical-developmental perspective, he investigated social anxiety development from a normative as well as clinical perspective. This led to the longitudinal program social anxiety in normal development in which questionnaire research was combined with lab experiment and psychophysiological recordings: the Social Anxiety and Normal Development study (SAND). In his current program, he combines these perspectives in a unique new program, focusing on the role of genes and environment in the development of social anxiety in the broadest sense. 

Dr. David Heyne

Dr. David Heyne is associate professor and he specializes in the relation between social anxiety and school refusal. When coming to Leiden, he brought his clinical and treatment experience from Australia and set up a new treatment program for school refusal in Leiden. Currently, he is interested in the development and evaluation of interventions for young people who find it hard to attend school as a result of anxiety and depression (i.e., school refusal), including intervention with the parents of these young people, and with school staff.

 Dr. Anke Blöte

Dr. Anke Blöte is assistant professor and has an interest in both laboratory based research and field observations of social anxiety. By investigating the perspectives of others on youth with social anxiety, she provides a broader context to understanding this prevalent vulnerability in adolescence. Her recent studies focus on the social skills of socially anxious adolescents and how these are evaluated by adult observers, same-aged peers and the socially anxious adolescents themselves. The different perspectives are needed in order to determine whether socially anxious adolescents’ negative self evaluations of social performance are warranted.

Dr. Caroline Bokhorst

Dr. Caroline Bokhorst is assistant professor and has a strong interest in the interplay between genes and environment to understand social anxiety. For her PhD research she conducted a behavioral genetic twin study to estimate the relative influence of genetic and environmental factors on attachment relationships in infants, after which she developed an interest in social anxiety research in adolescents. Now, she is one of the first to combine these two research lines by studying the development of social anxiety using a family design. By testing three generations, she will be able to test effects of genes and environment on the emergence of social anxiety in families.

Dr. Esther van den Bos

Dr. Esther van den Bos is an assistant professor in the SAND team. Her current research focuses on physical and behavioral responses to social-evaluative situations (e.g. public speaking). She is interested in the normal development of behavioral, physiological and neuroendocrine responses to such situations in adolescence and specifically in their relation with puberty and socio-cognitive development. In addition, she investigates how the pattern of development may be different in adolescents with high levels of social anxiety or public speaking anxiety.

Dr. Anne Miers

Dr. Anne Miers is an assistant professor in the SAND team. She completed her PhD on cognitive aspects of social anxiety, drawing from a clinical perspective. Subsequently, she longitudinally investigated the development of social anxiety over the adolescent period, and different predictors of high social anxiety levels over time. Anne is currently interested in the structure of psychopathology, particularly using network analysis, and in discovering new ways to ameliorate social anxiety and the role the peer group plays in this process. 

Dr. Melle van der Molen

Dr. Melle J.W. van der Molen is an assistant professor in clinical neurodevelopmental psychology at the Developmental Psychology Unit. His main research interests lie in discovering the fundamental psychophysiological processes that enable attention and cognition. To this end, he investigates both healthy individuals as well as those with psychopathology (e.g., anxiety disorders) or neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., fragile X syndrome). For more information, please visit his personal website.

PhD Students

Anita Harrewijn, MSc

Anita Harrewijn is a PhD student involved in the family study about social anxiety. She focuses on an EEG project about profiling endophenotypes. Anita is interested in neuroimaging and developmental psychopathology. She’s particularly interested in the development of social anxiety, her Honours Research Bachelor Project was also about social anxiety.

 Janna Marie Bas - Hoogendam, MSc

Janna Marie Bas - Hoogendam (MSc) has studied Medicine and Neuroscience, with a special interest to investigate the human brain using neuroimaging. She joined the Leiden Family Lab Study on Social Anxiety in March 2013 as a PhD student. Her PhD project, supervised by professor Michiel Westenberg and dr. Nic van der Wee, aims to profile endophenotypes of Social Anxiety Disorder using structural and functional MRI.

 Research assistants

Elise Kortink is a research master student in the Developmental Psychology track. She combines the research master with the clinically oriented master Child & Adolescent Psychology. Her Honours Research Bachelor Project was supervised by Melle van der Molen and focused on examining the low frequency neural oscillatory dynamics underlying emotion regulation by cognitive reappraisal. As a research assistant, Elise will carry on this research and investigate gender differences in emotion regulation by cognitive reappraisal.