Open Sky Research Director on LA Talk Radio

Posted by: danny on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Listen to the show archive here!

Dr. Joanna Bettmann, Open Sky’s Research Director, was featured on LA Talk Radio on Monday, October 26th, 2009.  Dr. Bettmann discusses adoption and attachment issues and how they affect mental health as well as treatment options and research outcomes.  She also talks about the application of attachment theory in wilderness treatment at Open Sky.

Since our inception in 2006, Dr. Bettmann has been conducting empirical outcome research on Open Sky students.  In addition to measuring overall mental health gains in our students for two years following treatment, we also utilize two measurements that specifically gauge changes in attachment among our adolescent and adult students. The Adolescent Attachment Questionnaire, a 9-item self-report questionnaire designed to assess adolescents’ perceptions of relationships with parents and the Adult Attachment Scale , an 18-item self-report survey designed to provide information regarding parents’ feelings about relationships, which will be useful in determining for which families wilderness treatment is most effective.  Learn more about research being conducted at Open Sky.

In addition to serving as Open Sky’s Research Director, Dr. Bettmann is an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah School of Social Work.  She holds a Ph.D from Smith College and is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker.  She researches attachment and treatment outcomes in a range of populations, and her work has been published in Clinical Social Work Journal, the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Journal of Child and Adolescent Social Work, the Journal of Therapeutic School and Programs, along with other journals. Dr. Bettmann conducted her dissertation on shifts in attachment relationships in wilderness treatment.

Dr. Bettmann has presented both nationally and internationally on attachment, adolescents and treatment outcomes. She is currently working on two major attachment research projects entitled A comparative study of the attachment relationships of U.S. and international undergraduates and The mental health and attachment of adolescent refugees.