"Personality pathology grows up" conference by Carla Sharp P.h.D.

Carla Sharp, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at the University of Houston and Director of Training for the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at UH. She also directs the Adolescent Diagnosis Assessment Prevention and Treatment (ADAPT) Center at UH and the Developmental Psychopathology Lab at UH. She has a longstanding interest in social cognition as a cause and correlate of psychiatric disorder across the lifespan with a special focus on youth. She has published over 200 peer reviewed publications, numerous chapters and books, including Social Cognition and Developmental Psychopathology (OUP), and Handbook of Borderline Personality Disorder in Children and Adolescents (Springer). A large proportion of her research has used Borderline Personality Disorder (and other personality pathology) to study where social-cognitive function goes awry.

As such, she has significantly advanced scientific understanding of the phenomenology, causes and correlates of Borderline Personality Disorder in youth. Recent developments in her work reflect a translational focus to carry through the earlier focus on social cognition to evaluate its function as mechanism of change in personality pathology as well as other attachment-related conditions (orphans). She is also currently interested in the metastructure of psychopathology to determine the cross-cutting value of social cognition in alternative models of personality pathology. Her work has been funded by the NICHD, NIAAA, NIMH, McNair Family Foundation, NARSAD and other foundations. She was the 2016 recipient of the mid-career award from the North American Society for the Study of Personality Disorders and the 2018 recipient of the Award for Achievement in the Field of Severe Personality Disorders by the Personality Disorders Institute and Borderline Personality Disorder Resource Center. She has been heavily involved in the ICD-11 re-write of the personality disorder.