Rücklab – Psychiatry research at Karolinska Institutet

We are happy to welcome our new research assistants, Erik Melin and Penny Taka, to the team!

Erik has a background in economics and a Magister Degree (Civilekonomexamen) from Linnéuniversitetet in Växjö. He is currently studying at KI, the third term of the Study Programme in Psychology. He will be assisting team members and leaders in John Wallert’s team with different tasks relating to their various research projects.

Penny is in her third year of the five-year study Programme in Psychology at the Karolinska Institute and holds a BSc in Business and Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics. She has previous work experience from healthcare and business settings, and is now looking forward to supporting ongoing research projects as a research assistant!

A warm welcome to them both! 👏

More exciting research is coming out of the Rück Research Group! 🥳 Led by Leoni Grossman, PhD student with the group, the study Suicide after involuntary psychiatric care: a nationwide cohort study in Sweden investigates suicide risk indicators among different subgroups of patients receiving involuntary psychiatric care. You can read it in full in The Lancet Regional Health here!

The Rück Research Group had a new article come out in BMJ Mental Health this week! The study, titled Patterns of sex-specific and age-specific risk indicators of suicide: a population-nested case-control study and led by Fredrik Johansson, investigated risk indicators of suicide and how they relate to actual suicide numbers among groups with certain demographic characteristics. Read it here: https://mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/28/1/e301959

Last week, members of the Rück Research Group visited collaborators in Oxford. The purpose of the trip was to further existing partnerships with our British colleagues within a range of different projects—an endeavour that proved highly successful! 🏫

On Friday, our very own Julia Bäckman defended her dissertation, and of course passed with flying colors! Her thesis, titled Bridging Genes and Therapy: Insights into CBT Outcomes for OCD, anxiety and depression, explores when CBT is and is not effective with the aim of ensuring that as many individuals as possible can receive the treatment that fits them best. It can be found here.

Among the many spectators were the majority of Julia’s supervisors, Christian Rück (main supervisor), John Wallert, and David Mataix-Cols, as well as the examination board, consisting of Sandra Tamm and Ida Karlsson from the Karolinska Institute and Filip Arnberg from Uppsala University. Acting as the opponent was Evangelos Vassos from King’s College.

Congratulations, Julia, on a successful dissertation defence! We are incredibly proud of you and can’t wait to follow your continued journey! 🥳👏

Last week, Julia nailed her dissertation Bridging Genes and Therapy: Insights into CBT Outcomes for OCD, anxiety and depression. We look forward to her disputation on September 12th and wish her good luck! 👏

We are happy to introduce another exciting addition to the team! 🎉

Danny Majid is an MD and PhD student at Karolinska Institutet, currently completing his residency in psychiatry at Psykiatri Sydväst. His research focuses on emotion processing and regulation in individuals with intellectual disability (ID). The project uses eye-tracking and explores whether pain and generalized joint hypermobility are associated with behavioural dysregulation in ID. He will also evaluate whether dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) can improve emotional regulation in this population. His main supervisor is Long-Long Chen.

We are excited to have Danny on board!

In addition to Hanna and Martin, we would like to welcome Filip Jonsson to the group!

Filip is a PhD student with a background in medical ethics research. He also works as a junior physician, holding an MD from Karolinska Institutet. 

Filip’s research concerns ethical and legal questions regarding suicide risk assessments, with Docent Manne Sjöstrand as main supervisor.

We’re excited to have him on board! 🥳

We have more exciting news on the team front! Going forward, the Rück research group will be joined by Martin Turesson.

Martin is a PhD student with a background in clinical medicine, psychiatric research, and academic teaching. He holds an MD from Linköping University and currently works as a junior doctor in psychiatry.

Martin is a member of the Statistical Modelling team, with John Wallert as his main supervisor. He leads a systematic review on the outcomes of involuntary psychiatric care and is involved in the development of a clinical risk calculator for adverse outcomes following discharge from involuntary psychiatric care.

We look forward to having him and want to wish him good luck with his upcoming studies! 🎉

We are excited to welcome Hanna Weyler to the group!

Hanna is an industrial PhD student employed by Save the Children Sweden. She is a licensed Psychologist and Specialist in psychological treatment/psychotherapy mainly working in the field of trauma related mental health issues in children and adolescents. She is a certified international trainer in Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for children (TF CBT) and has prior clinical experience from Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Social Services. 

Hanna will be working with main supervisor Maria Bragesjö in the iTF CBT project (Efficacy and cost effectiveness of Internet-delivered trauma focused CBT for children with PTSD).

We are happy to have her on board and wish her a warm welcome! 🥳