Crystal Park
Professor
| Degree: | Ph.D., 1993 University of Delaware |
| Webpages: | Spirituality, Meaning and Health |
| Research Interests: | Stress, Coping, and Health; Meaning Making; Psychology of Religion and Spirituality; Trauma; Cancer Survivorship; Yoga |
| Research Synopsis: | Dr. Parkâs research focuses on multiple aspects of coping with stressful events, including the roles of religious beliefs and religious coping, the phenomenon of stress-related growth, and the making of meaning in the context of traumatic events and life-threatening illnesses, particularly with cancer survivors, congestive heart failure patients, and military veterans. In recent years, Dr. Park has also been investigating mind-body relationships, particularly the science of yoga. |
| Courses: | Undergraduate:
PSYC 3105 Health Psychology PSYC 3889/3899 Independent Study Graduate: |
| Students in Research: | Dr. Park maintains an active research lab of graduate and undergraduate students. Of primary interest are applicants with interests and experience relevant to studying health psychology, meaning, complementary/integrative medicine, and/or the psychology of religion and spirituality. |
| Recent publications: | All publications can be found in in Scholar.google:
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qWH4nBgAAAAJ&hl=en |
| Representative Publications: | Park, C. L., Smith, P. H., Lee, S. Y., Mazure, C. M., McKee, S. A., & Hoff, R. (in press). Positive and negative religious/spiritual coping and combat exposure as predictors of posttraumatic stress symptoms and post-traumatic growth in US Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.
Park, C. L., & Cho, D. (in press). Spiritual well-being and spiritual distress predict adjustment in adolescent and young adult cancer survivors. Psycho-Oncology.
Park, C. L., Aldwin, C. M., Choun, S., & George, L. (2016). Spirituality predicts five-year mortality risk in heart failure patients. Health Psychology, 35, 203â210.
Park, C. L., Braun, T., & Siegel, T. (2015). Who practices yoga? A systematic review of demographic, health-related, and psychosocial factors associated with yoga use. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 38, 460-471.
Park, C. L., & Iacocca, M. O. (2014). A stress and coping perspective on health behaviors: Theoretical and methodological considerations. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 27, 123-137.
Park, C. L. (2013). Religion and meaning. In R. F. Paloutzian & C. L. Park (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality, 2nd Edition (pp. 357-379). New York: Guilford.
Park, C. L., Mills, M., & Edmondson, D. (2012). PTSD as meaning violation: A test of a cognitive worldview perspective. Psychological Trauma Theory, Research Practice, and Policy, 4, 66-73.
Park, C. L. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: An integrative review of meaning making and its effects on adjustment to stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 257â301. |
| Research Funding | Dr. Park is currently co-principal investigator (PI) (with Michelle Williams) of an NIH-funded study of self-regulation and academic success in UConn students. She is also currently PI or Co-PI of NIH-funded studies of yoga for stress-management and the development of a tool to measure essential properties of yoga |