Awardee: Dr. Craig Rodriguez-Seijas
Key Findings:
- Borderline personality disorder is more prevalent among LGBTQ+ populations.
- Stressors in the environment can elicit behaviors, thoughts, and emotions that look
disordered, but may be short-term adaptive responses to the stress. - There is growing evidence that classifying mental disorders not by discrete category, but by underlying dimension, may be useful; many disorders have a lot more in common than they do different.
“A lot of the symptoms of [mental health disorders] can be totally functional in certain environments–specifically, environments that are characterized by chronic stress.”
It is no surprise that some of the biggest questions facing clinical psychologists have to do with accurate diagnosis. What are the criteria for a disorder and how can we tell if someone meets those criteria? While prior research has certainly explored these topics, there is a deeper-seeded question that also begs exploration: What actually makes something a disorder, rather than a reasonable reaction to environmental demands? How, and where, do we draw the lines between adaptive change and psychopathology? Dr. Craig Rodriguez-Seijas, assistant professor at the University of Michigan, works to tackle these topics. For his significant contributions to our collective knowledge of psychopathology–and the roles that social stigma may play in diagnosis–FABBS is excited to showcase Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas as a recipient of the Early Career Impact Award.
“I’d like to understand the fundamental nature of psychopathology,” Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas explains. “Psychiatric disorders, when we colloquially speak about them, are not always the way they exist in nature–meaning that they’re not differences of kind, but they’re differences of degree more than anything else.” While still a PhD student completing his predoctoral internship at Brown University, Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas began to notice trends in diagnosis. Specifically, he observed that clients who identified as LGBTQ+ would often be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD), which seemed to indicate a bias in practice. The way the BPD diagnosis was framed was sometimes at odds with his own training in LGBTQ+-affirming practice that he received as a graduate student at Stony Brook University.
BPD is typified by emotional instability, self-harm behaviors, and fears of social isolation and abandonment, among other characteristics. Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas questioned whether experiences of bias–like those he was observing anecdotally–could have an impact on the mental health of people belonging to marginalized groups, and he executed a research project to explore this possibility. “It really happened organically…it started as one study, and has now become my line of work,” he explained. Findings from that initial project indicated that LGBTQ+ individuals were more likely to be given a BPD diagnosis regardless of other correlates of the disorder. This inspired a line of research that Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas pursued as a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University and continues now as an assistant professor at the University of Michigan.
In addition to his work exploring how bias is linked with mental health severity broadly, a more developmental version of these questions arose. It occurred to Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas that some of the symptoms may be influenced by social stress–in the form of identity bias–that an individual experiences as they grow up. “This could start early,” he states, “when someone is young and starts to notice that they’re different. Then they hear the way people talk about others who are also different, and see that there’s a bias. Over time, that could make certain symptoms understandable–like fear of rejection, for instance.” In other words, it is possible that some characteristics that have been labelled “psychopathology” may indeed be natural reactions to pervasive social stress and stigma.
There has been a tendency to view mental health as having a strong biological basis (e.g., the “chemical imbalance” perspectives on disorders like depression) with less attention devoted to understanding the pernicious aspects of the environment. Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas believes these perspectives should be updated to also comprehensively consider the role of the environment. “The assumptions that we make about [BPD] aren’t the best for everyone involved–in particular, the assumption that it’s largely biological isn’t always helpful,” he notes. As director of the Stigma, Psychopathology, and Assessment (SPLAT) Lab, Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas aims not only to highlight the role of the social environment in the development of psychopathology (particularly in minoritized populations). He also aims to conduct research that explores the mechanisms that underlie these processes. Specifically, his lab asks: How is it that the environment impacts mental health? What are the factors or processes that link, for instance, environmental stress to clinical symptomology?
Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas’ work in these areas is aligned with Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) approaches, which organize mental health problems by severity and shared dimensions rather than discrete categories. HiTOP framing can help discern when mental health symptoms reflect enduring vulnerability, versus contextually adaptive responses to hostile environments. Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas also emphasizes the applied value of this research. If clinicians can better understand how environmental factors interact with symptom presentation, they may be able to avoid diagnosis and treatment practices that inadvertently perpetuate stigma. For example, distinguishing between chronic psychopathology and responses to persistent discrimination could guide the refinement of interventions that foster resilience rather than pathologizing survival strategies. LGBTQ+ intervention science already highlights the utility of integrating this perspective in psychiatric treatment.
Collectively, Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas’s work highlights the importance of moving beyond standard approaches to diagnosis and encourages the use of models that embrace the interplay between biology, environment, and social context. His research not only challenges long-standing assumptions in psychology, but also points out areas of growth that will contribute to more just and accurate practices in assessment and intervention. FABBS is excited to highlight Dr. Rodriguez-Seijas for conducting valuable work that encourages researchers and policymakers alike to reshape how we define and respond to psychopathology.
Potential Impacts and Applications:
- Policies that perpetuate stigma can contribute directly to mental health struggles, particularly in populations (e.g., LGBTQ+) that experience discrimination.
- Clinicians, researchers, and policy makers should consider how aspects of the broader social environment may have a role in observable symptomology.
- Diagnostic frameworks that incorporate dimensional and contextual perspectives (e.g., HiTOP) can reduce misdiagnosis, improve equity in treatment, and ensure that interventions are tailored to the lived realities of marginalized populations.
