Guðrún Rut Guðmundsdóttir, PhD candidate
Guðrún works in the Team Network group, which is part of the NSMD consortium (New Science of Mental Disorders). The main aim of the NSMD project is to gain more nuanced insight into how psychopathology is initiated and maintained – and how this varies across individuals – in the hope of improving the diagnosis and treatment of mental health problems. As such, it advocates for conceptualising psychopathology as complex symptom networks, both in research and clinical practice. Guðrún’s work focuses on mapping out individual networks of various transdiagnostic symptoms and related variables, exploring individual- and group differences in network profiles and how these networks relate to traditional diagnostic categories.
Publications that I’m most proud of
Reciprocal associations between sense of purpose and subjective well-being in old age. European Journal of Personality, 2023.
Sense of purpose in life (having a clear and personally-meaningful direction in life) is a robust predictor of health and psychological adjustment throughout the lifespan. In this study, we analysed the reciprocal associations between sense of purpose and various markers of subjective well-being in later life, and we found stronger support for sense of purpose predicting later well-being compared to well-being predicting later purpose. This study and the broader literature suggests that sense of purpose may be an important protective factor for psychological adjustment, and that lack of purpose may comprise a transdiagnostic marker of psychopathology.
