David Dunkley

David Dunkley, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Member of Psychology at McGill and Senior Researcher with the Lady Davis Institute and Jewish General Hospital. The primary goal of his research has been to examine the mechanisms through which perfectionism is a cognitive-personality vulnerability factor to depression. His research examines stress, coping, and emotion regulation processes that might explain why self-critical (SC) perfectionism instigates and maintains depressive symptoms in nonclinical community adults and depressed patients. His previous research in university student, community adult, and clinical populations has showed that SC perfectionistic individuals experience persistent depressive symptoms via stress, avoidant coping, and lower perceived social support. In addition, individuals with higher SC perfectionism have been found to have heightened vulnerability to depressive symptoms in response to achievement-related and interpersonal stress, lower perceived control, and avoidant coping. His research also incorporates hyperactivity of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis (i.e., cortisol secretion) as an additional explanatory stress variable. He has received numerous fellowships and salary awards, obtained grants from federal and provincial agencies, and has published several articles in respected journals using structural equation modeling/path analysis and multilevel modeling as the primary data analytic techniques. In 2005, he received the Canadian Psychological Association President’s New Researcher Award. Dr. Dunkley is a clinical psychologist and an associate with the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) Service of the ICFP-JGH. In his clinical practice, he specializes in the treatment of mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and developmental disorders in adults.