Process Research and Personalization Lab
Stony Brook University | Department of Psychology
Toward a more personalized science of psychotherapy
Mental health challenges are consistently high across populations, yet decades of research into evidence-based psychological treatments leave many individuals without improvement. The field has increasingly emphasized that to improve these rates, we need to understand better what maintains mental health challenges and how we can tailor evidence-based treatments to the unique needs of individuals.
Lab Research and Mission
The PRPLab develops new methods for personalizing psychotherapy by bridging clinical science and computational modeling. Drawing on complexity science, we work to advance case conceptualization, the process of understanding what drives an individual’s difficulties and how best to treat them. Our goal is to improve psychotherapy outcomes, especially for populations that face disproportionate mental health challenges, including LGBTQ individuals.
Our work centers on four interconnected strands:
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Personalized network analysis: modeling the dynamics of individual patients’ symptoms and processes over time.
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Formal theories of transdiagnostic processes: building mathematical and simulation-based models of the mechanisms that cut across diagnoses.
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LGBTQ-affirmative cognitive behavioral therapy: developing and evaluating treatments tailored to the needs of LGBTQ people.
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Natural language processing and Large Language Models: using language-based methods to study psychotherapy processes and mechanisms.
Data and Methodology
Our research combines intensive longitudinal data, language data from therapy, and computational modeling to understand and personalize psychotherapy.
Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA)
We collect repeated, brief assessments of people’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in daily life, capturing how psychological processes unfold in real time and in real-world contexts.
Time series analysis and personalized network analysis
We model intensive longitudinal data at the level of the individual, estimating how symptoms and processes influence one another over time. These person-specific networks inform case conceptualization and treatment planning.
Natural language processing of psychotherapy session transcripts
We apply NLP and large language models to session transcripts to study what happens in therapy, identify mechanisms of change, and support the development of case conceptualizations.
Formal theories and simulation-based science
Drawing on dynamical systems theory, we build formal models of transdiagnostic processes and use simulation to test their implications, evaluate statistical methods, and generate predictions that can be tested empirically.
Single-case experimental designs
We use designs that track change within individuals across treatment phases, allowing us to evaluate whether personalized interventions work for the person they were designed for.
Open science
We are committed to transparent and reproducible research. Wherever possible, we preregister our studies and share code, materials, and data, and we develop freely available tools, such as Shiny apps, so that researchers and clinicians can apply our methods in their own work.
Admissions Notice
Dr. Burger will be reviewing graduate student applications for the 2026-2027 academic year.
Please visit Join the Lab and the official Stony Brook Psychology admissions pages for current information.