Andrew J. Smith
PhD in clinical psychology. Current Instructor (tenure-track faculty) in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Utah and Staff Psychologist in Primary Care Mental Health Integration at the VA Salt Lake City HCS. Founder and director of the Occupational Trauma Program in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Utah School of Medicine (est. October 2018).
I am an interdisciplinary clinical scientist working in the area of stress, health, and resilience, with an interest in integrated care and population health management. Over the past several years, my primary focus has been to integrate tools/analyses to understand the confluence of environments, self-regulation, and neural circuitry as it relates to resilience after trauma. My current and prospective research focuses on identifying mechanisms of change/motivation for the purposes of intervention development to enhance individuals' engagement in social networks. Increasing social connectivity among chronically stressed populations will have downstream effects for mental health, physical health, meaning and purpose, engagement in specialty EBTs, and reduced healthcare system burden.
Clinically, I work from an interdisciplinary/integrative healthcare model. I utilize a diversity of clinical technologies, evidence based treatments, and tools to attend to the 'whole health' of the individual, involving integration of traditional cognitive behavioral therapy, third-wave CBT (e.g., acceptance and commitment therapy; dialectical behavioral therapy), motivational interviewing, neuropsychology, and neuroscience.
Supervisors: Charles C. Benight, Russell T. Jones, David W. Harrison, and Michael Hughes
I am an interdisciplinary clinical scientist working in the area of stress, health, and resilience, with an interest in integrated care and population health management. Over the past several years, my primary focus has been to integrate tools/analyses to understand the confluence of environments, self-regulation, and neural circuitry as it relates to resilience after trauma. My current and prospective research focuses on identifying mechanisms of change/motivation for the purposes of intervention development to enhance individuals' engagement in social networks. Increasing social connectivity among chronically stressed populations will have downstream effects for mental health, physical health, meaning and purpose, engagement in specialty EBTs, and reduced healthcare system burden.
Clinically, I work from an interdisciplinary/integrative healthcare model. I utilize a diversity of clinical technologies, evidence based treatments, and tools to attend to the 'whole health' of the individual, involving integration of traditional cognitive behavioral therapy, third-wave CBT (e.g., acceptance and commitment therapy; dialectical behavioral therapy), motivational interviewing, neuropsychology, and neuroscience.
Supervisors: Charles C. Benight, Russell T. Jones, David W. Harrison, and Michael Hughes
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Empirical Studies by Andrew J. Smith
Keywords: network analysis, PTSD, mass violence, shooting
Rehabilitation unit at a major medical center for concerns over left-sided anesthesia and weakness. Head scans indicate a
right middle cerebral arterial distribution infarct altering blood flow in temporal, parietal, and occipital regions in the right
cerebral hemisphere.
OBJECTIVE:Physician and therapist reports (i.e., speech and occupational therapists) referred the patient for a neuropsychological
evaluation for concerns over the patient’s capacity to recognize the severity of her deficits and self-care, with potential
rule-outs indicated by the extant literature on right CVA for anosognosia, anosodiaphoria, and left hemibody/hemispace
neglect.
METHODS: The current case integrates interdisciplinary physician notation, magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic
resonance angiogram, observations and reports from speech and occupational therapy, and neuropsychological assessment
via standardized tests and neurobehavioral syndrome analysis.
RESULTS: Evidence was found for co-occurring syndromes of moderate anosognosia, anosodiaphoria, and left hemibody/
hemispatial neglect derived from shared functional cerebral space with overlapping temporal, parietal, and occipital
damage.
CONCLUSIONS: Clinical implications are discussed, including recommendations for therapy approaches based on functional
cerebral space theory that may indicate the use of known techniques (e.g., for left hemibody neglect) that may also
have therapeutic implications for treating other, more mercurial co-occurring syndromes of anosognosia and anosodiaphoria.
as well as a potential target for posttrauma therapy. Longitudinal research,
however, is nonexistent in the trauma literature. Further, the adaptation of
forgiveness for understanding mass violent events has yet to be tested. The
current study examined a theory-based hypothesis posing forgiveness as a
mediator between posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and posttraumatic
growth (PTG) in the context of a mass university campus shooting. Results
showed that forgiveness was a significant mediator of the indirect, positive
relationship between Time 1 PTS and Time 1 and Time 2 PTG.
Implications include considering mechanisms (e.g., forgiveness) that link
PTS and PTG for application in future research and practice.
disasters, as well as other episodic and chronic coastal hazards. These events also instigated a dialogue on
their long-term resilience, adaptation options, and the possibility of permanent relocation from high risk
areas. Little is known how exposure to disaster, in combination with other contemporary coastal challenges,
affects willingness to consider relocation on a household level in the highly-developed urban
settlements. The main objective of this paper is to provide a bottom-up perspective on this dilemma via
identification of demographic determinants and other disaster-related concerns that may influence
support for relocation. More specifically, this study takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine the
effects of pre-disaster socio-economic household characteristics, level of preparedness, disaster exposure,
experience with recovery, community embeddedness, and resource loss on relocation decisionmaking.
The findings hereby reveal that the willingness to consider relocation is primarily influenced by
the age of respondents, disaster exposure, level of experienced stress related to recovery, personal financial recovery concerns, future cost of living in high-risk area, concerns with increase in crime andfuture flooding, and disasterinduced resource loss
Papers by Andrew J. Smith
Keywords: posttraumatic stress, medical traumatic stress, children, primary care, assessment, treatment
Keywords: network analysis, PTSD, mass violence, shooting
Rehabilitation unit at a major medical center for concerns over left-sided anesthesia and weakness. Head scans indicate a
right middle cerebral arterial distribution infarct altering blood flow in temporal, parietal, and occipital regions in the right
cerebral hemisphere.
OBJECTIVE:Physician and therapist reports (i.e., speech and occupational therapists) referred the patient for a neuropsychological
evaluation for concerns over the patient’s capacity to recognize the severity of her deficits and self-care, with potential
rule-outs indicated by the extant literature on right CVA for anosognosia, anosodiaphoria, and left hemibody/hemispace
neglect.
METHODS: The current case integrates interdisciplinary physician notation, magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic
resonance angiogram, observations and reports from speech and occupational therapy, and neuropsychological assessment
via standardized tests and neurobehavioral syndrome analysis.
RESULTS: Evidence was found for co-occurring syndromes of moderate anosognosia, anosodiaphoria, and left hemibody/
hemispatial neglect derived from shared functional cerebral space with overlapping temporal, parietal, and occipital
damage.
CONCLUSIONS: Clinical implications are discussed, including recommendations for therapy approaches based on functional
cerebral space theory that may indicate the use of known techniques (e.g., for left hemibody neglect) that may also
have therapeutic implications for treating other, more mercurial co-occurring syndromes of anosognosia and anosodiaphoria.
as well as a potential target for posttrauma therapy. Longitudinal research,
however, is nonexistent in the trauma literature. Further, the adaptation of
forgiveness for understanding mass violent events has yet to be tested. The
current study examined a theory-based hypothesis posing forgiveness as a
mediator between posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and posttraumatic
growth (PTG) in the context of a mass university campus shooting. Results
showed that forgiveness was a significant mediator of the indirect, positive
relationship between Time 1 PTS and Time 1 and Time 2 PTG.
Implications include considering mechanisms (e.g., forgiveness) that link
PTS and PTG for application in future research and practice.
disasters, as well as other episodic and chronic coastal hazards. These events also instigated a dialogue on
their long-term resilience, adaptation options, and the possibility of permanent relocation from high risk
areas. Little is known how exposure to disaster, in combination with other contemporary coastal challenges,
affects willingness to consider relocation on a household level in the highly-developed urban
settlements. The main objective of this paper is to provide a bottom-up perspective on this dilemma via
identification of demographic determinants and other disaster-related concerns that may influence
support for relocation. More specifically, this study takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine the
effects of pre-disaster socio-economic household characteristics, level of preparedness, disaster exposure,
experience with recovery, community embeddedness, and resource loss on relocation decisionmaking.
The findings hereby reveal that the willingness to consider relocation is primarily influenced by
the age of respondents, disaster exposure, level of experienced stress related to recovery, personal financial recovery concerns, future cost of living in high-risk area, concerns with increase in crime andfuture flooding, and disasterinduced resource loss
Keywords: posttraumatic stress, medical traumatic stress, children, primary care, assessment, treatment