Crystal Park

Dr. Park’s research focuses on stress, coping, and adaptation, particularly on how people’s beliefs, goals, and values affect their ways of perceiving and dealing with stressful events. She has developed a comprehensive model of meaning and meaning making and is applying this model to a variety of health-related problems and traumas. Dr. Park has published articles on the roles of religious beliefs and religious coping in response to stressful life events, the phenomenon of stress-related growth, and people’s attempts to find meaning in or create meaning out of negative life events. She is currently the principal investigator on grants from the National Cancer Institute (testing a lifestyle intervention for breast cancer survivors) and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (developing a translational tool for yoga research). She is associate editor for Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, Psychology and Health, and International Journal of the Psychology of Religion. Dr. Park is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and a former president of Division 36 of APA (Psychology of Religion) and recipient of their Early Career Award. In 2014, she received the William James Award from Division 36 in recognition of her contributions to the psychology of religion and spirituality.

Education
University of Delaware: Ph.D., Clinical Psychology  1993
Clarion University of Pennsylvania: M.A., Psychology  1988
Clarion University of Pennsylvania: B.S., Psychology  1985

Experience
UConn
Professor of Psychology
Aug 1999 – Present
Employment Duration21 yrs 9 mos

Miami University
Assistant Professor
Aug 1995 – May 1999

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, 203–210.

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, 257–301.