Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Student · University of Michigan
I study how personality pathology is organized within the self and in relationships, and how relatively enduring patterns become expressed differently across people, perspectives, situations, and time.
Kimberly J. Gilbert, M.S. · Department of Psychology · University of Michigan
Research program
Personality has organization.Expression depends on context.Clinical meaning depends on both.
Self and relationships
02Structure and process
03Multiple perspectives
Selected published work
Selected articles that connect personality organization, interpersonal functioning, clinical theory, and quantitative methods.
Personality functioning can be understood as a developmental capacity involving the organization of self and relationships, while traits describe the characteristic style through which difficulties are expressed.
Read the article overview →
Differences between interpersonal problems, values, and perceived capabilities can contain information about personality functioning that is not reducible to the elevation of any one profile.
Explore the interpersonal geometry →
Across three samples, AMPD dimensions captured substantial variation in borderline personality features, with less complete coverage of some interpersonal and self-destructive content.
Read the diagnostic-model story →
Prospective power for circumplex profiles depends on which parameter is being tested and, for angular displacement, on how strongly the underlying profile is differentiated.
Open the methods story →
Current research questions
Current-project pages describe the scientific question and design without posting unpublished results.
Observed conversations separate characteristic couple-level patterns from changes tied to the immediate conversational context.
Explore the question →The SASB introject provides a formal bridge between theories of internalization, the self-system, structural psychopathology, and daily interpersonal experience.
Explore the framework →A person-by-object design tests consistency and context across close people, acquaintances, animals, objects, and places.
Enter the conceptual model →Research areas
Identity, personality functioning, self-treatment, developmental severity, and the organization of psychological capacities.
Criterion A · Identity · Introject · Development
Interpersonal problems, complementarity, informant perspectives, dyadic processes, and how people shape one another in interaction.
Circumplex · Complementarity · Informants · Dyads
When stable individual differences generalize across situations, when they do not, and what different timescales reveal about psychological organization.
Within-person · Between-person · Context · Time
Dimensional nosology, diagnostic language, stigma, treatment relevance, and the role of lived experience in evaluating systems of personality disorder diagnosis.
AMPD · BPD · Nosology · Lived experience
Essays
Diagnosis & identity
Borderline personality disorder, dimensional psychiatry, and the cost of finally having an answer.
Read essay →Structure / process
Classification / reform
Personality functioning
About
I am a Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan. My work connects dimensional psychopathology with interpersonal, psychodynamic, and developmental theory, using methods suited to the level at which the psychological question is posed.
