BIU Psychotherapy Research Lab

The Psychotherapy Research Laboratory, directed by Prof. Dana Atzil-Slonim, is part of the Department of Psychology at Bar-Ilan University.

We study the intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics that unfold during psychotherapy, with the goal of understanding how people change in treatment and the mechanisms that make such change possible. At the heart of our work is the question of how patients’ and therapists’ emotions, behaviors, thoughts, and needs influence one another moment by moment, and how these interactions give rise to meaningful therapeutic change.

Our research integrates contemporary clinical theory with advanced research methods and tools from Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning (ML), and multimodal analysis of language, voice, video, questionnaires, and physiological signals. Using these approaches, we analyze a rich collection of naturalistic psychotherapy data that includes both verbal and nonverbal information collected throughout the course of treatment. This integration enables us to examine therapeutic processes in depth and at scale, and to identify the patterns and mechanisms that promote change and recovery.

Our goal is to advance the scientific understanding of human change and to contribute to the development of approaches and tools that support more precise, personalized, and responsive mental health care.