Hedy Teglasi

Hedwig Teglasi, Ph.D., ABPP, professor in the School Psychology Program within the Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education at the University of Maryland, and Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Society for Personality Assessment, and American Academy of School Psychology, has published two books and numerous book chapters and journal articles on topics relevant to personality assessment, temperament, and social competence interventions. Her two books on storytelling methods are: Clinical Use of Storytelling and Essentials of TAT and Other Storytelling Assessment Techniques (now in its second edition). Dr. Teglasi has served as an associate editor of the School Psychology Quarterly, as member of several Editorial Boards, and as guest editor and co-editor of special topics journal issues about temperament and personality assessment. She has recently served as President of the American Board of School Psychology and currently holds the position of treasurer of the American Academy of School Psychology.

Research Interests: Stated in broad strokes, I am interested in how the interplay between children's temperamental dispositions and children's exchanges with various environments impacts learning and development. Temperament refers to biologically based dispositions that shape our experiences in two ways by: a) influencing how we pay attention and respond emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally to our surroundings; and b) by influencing how others respond to us. Our temperamental dispositions foster certain patterns in our exchanges with others and, as we detect these regularities, we form mental representations or schemas about ourselves, others, and the world. Once solidified, these representations assume a life of their own as a part of our personality that confers psychological vulnerability or resilience. Our schemas serve as templates for judging our day to day transactions and, it is our interpretation (much of which occurs automatically, outside of awareness), not the events themselves, that gives rise to how we feel and behave. Judgments that are based on disorganized, inaccurate or overly simplistic schemas promote maladaptive emotions and actions that often serve to strengthen the initial misconceptions.

I am interested in pursuing specific research questions that relate temperamental and personality processes to one another and to day to day adjustment. In pursuing this line of work, I also address related measurement and conceptual issues. What we learn from our studies depends very much on how we define and measure constructs. For example, personality and schemas exist in two versions, implicit and explicit, that are measured with different techniques. Explicit personality represents what we value as important to our identity and is promoted by culture/socialization. Implicit personality is supported by emotional/temperamental dispositions. These two aspects of the personality may or may not be congruent within a given individual and, in the general population are not highly correlated. For example, a young man who talks about how much he wants to be first violinist in an orchestra (explicit) finds it excruciating to put in the required practice (implicit).

I am interested in refining measurement of temperament and schemas to better investigate the relations between them. I continue to focus on story-telling as a procedure to measure implicit schemas and have more recently begun to explore story based interventions to promote schema growth, which should enhance self-regulation and social competence. Currently, I and my students are investigating relations among temperament, social competence, executive functions, and emotion understanding.

Teaching and clinical supervision: My teaching responsibilities include developmental psychopathology, diagnostic assessment, and practicum courses in assessment. I direct an assessment service within the Department called Psychological and Educational Evaluation and Research (PEER) in which students participate as part of a two semester assessment practicum sequence.

Certification and licenses

Licensed Psychologist, Maryland Licensed Psychologist, New York (Inactive) National Register of Mental Health Service Providers American Board of Professional Psychology, School Psychology, ABPP