Education
| 2008 | Clinical Psychologist (Professional training in cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy 2002 – 2008 at the Centre for Psychological Psychotherapy, University of Heidelberg, Germany) |
| 2007 | Doctor Rerum Socialium (equivalent to Ph.D.), Summa Cum Laude, Psychology, University of Mannheim, Germany (Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Josef Bailer, Prof. Dr. Fred Rist, and Prof. Dr. Werner W. Wittmann) Thesis: Attentional Bias, Memory Bias, and Symptom Attribution in Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance and Classical Somatoform Disorders |
| 2001 | Diploma in Psychology, University of Mannheim, Germany (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Heinz-Martin Süß). Thesis: Inhibitory control – An explanatory construct for cognitive aging effects? |
| 2001 | Research Assistant "Attention and Working Memory Lab", School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA, USA (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Randall Engle) |
| 1997–2010 | Research Assistant in a project on Working Memory Capacity and Intelligence, University of Mannheim, Germany |
Academic and Clinical Positions
| Since 2014 | Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Mainz, Germany |
| 2013-2014 | Visiting Professor of Health Psychology, University of Mannheim, Germany |
| 2008-2013 | Post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany (Head of department: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hiller) |
| 2011-2012 | Visiting Researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychological Medicine, King's College, London, UK (Supervisor: Dr. James Rubin; Head of department: Prof. Dr. Simon Wessely) |
| 2006-2008 | Psychotherapist in the Mannheim Social Phobia Study (SOPHISMA; Supervisor: Dr. Regina Steil) |
| 2002-2007 | Research assistant at the Department of Clinical Psychology at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Josef Bailer) |
| 2001-2002 | Lectureship in Experimental Psychology at the Department of General Psychology and Methodology, University of Basel, Switzerland (Head of department: Prof. Dr. Klaus Opwis) |
Awards
| 2018 | Excellent teaching award of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany |
| 2018 | Excellent teaching award of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany |
| 2012 | Research Award of the German Association for Behaviour Therapy (DGVT) |
| 2012 | Poster among the Top 11 Poster Selection at the 12th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine, Budapest, Hungary. Poster: How Many Types of Medically Unexplained Symptoms: one or Many, or Both at the Same Time? A Bifactor Approach to the Latent Structure of Somatic Symptoms |
| 2010 | Poster Award (Poster among the Top 15) at the 11th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine, Washington, USA. Poster: How quick can you forget “tumor”? Health anxiety and the ability to remove illness related information from working memory |
| 2006 | Best Young Scientist Award of the Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy Division of the German Psychological Society (DGPs) |
Professional Affiliations
- Association for Psychological Science (APS)
- German Psychological Society (DGPs; Section Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy)
- German Society for Behavioural Medicine (DGVM)
- German Association for Behaviour Therapy (DGVT)
Research Interests
- Experimental assessment of interoception
- Relations between interoception, somatic symptom perception, and emotion regulation
- Processes of emotion regulation and their relationship to mental disorders
- The affective role of mental imagery in psychopathology
- Experimental assessment of attention allocation and cognitive-emotional processing
- Assessment of cognitive biases in psychopathology
- Social intelligence
- Structural equation modelling
- Psychotherapy Research
- Somatoform disorders
- Functional somatic syndromes
- Tactile information processing
Publications
In Press
Watson, D., Levin-Aspenson, H. F., Waszczuk, M. A., Conway, C. C., Dalgleish, T., Dretsch, M. N., Eaton, N. R., Forbes, M. K., Forbush, K. T., Hobbs, K. A., Michelini, G., Nelson, B. D., Sellbom, M., Slade, T., South, S. C., Sunderland, M., Waldman, I., Witthöft, M., Wright, A. G. C., Kotov, R., Krueger, R. F., and HiTOP Utility Workgroup. (in press). Validity and utility of Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP): III. Emotional dysfunction superspectrum. World Psychiatry.
Hennemann, S., Böhme, K., Kleinstäuber, M., Baumeister, H., Küchler, A.-M., Ebert, D. D., & Witthöft, M. (in press). Internet-based CBT for somatic symptom distress (iSOMA) in emerging adults: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
Shi, C., Taylor, S., Witthöft, M., Du, X., Zhang, T., Lu, S., & Ren, Z. (in press). Attentional Bias Towards Health-Threat in Health Anxiety: A Systematic Review and Three-Level Meta-Analysis. Psychological Medicine.
Grabli, F. E., Quesque, F., Borg, C., Witthöft, M., Michael, G. A., Lucas, C., Pasquier, F., Lebouvier, T., & Bertoux, M. (in press). Interoception and social cognition in chronic low back pain: a common inference disturbance? An exploratory study. Pain Management.
Sauer, K. S., Schmidt, A., Jungmann, S. M., Bailer, J., & Witthöft, M. (in press). Do patients with pathological health anxiety fear COVID-19? A time-course analysis of 12 single cases during the "first wave" of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Journal of Psychosomatic Research.
Hahn, D., Weck, F., Witthöft, M., & Weck, F. (in press). Assessment of Counseling Self-Efficacy: Validation of the German Counselor Activity Self-Efficacy Scales (CASES-R). Frontiers in Psychology.
Hennemann, S., Kuhn, S., Witthöft, M., Jungmann, S. M. (in press). Can an App-Based Symptom Checker Accurately Detect Mental Disorders? A Comparative Study in Psychotherapy Outpatients. Journal of Medical Internet Research.
Güney, Z., Cardone, D., Sattel, H., Ariens, S., Witthöft, M., Merla, A., Kuppens, P., & Henningsen, P. (in press). Interpersonal emotion dynamics in couples with somatic symptom disorder: Dyadic coherence in facial temperature during emotional interactions. Psychosomatic Medicine.
Watrin, L., Nordin, S., Szemerszky, R., Wilhelm, O., Witthöft, M., Köteles, F. (in press). Psychological models of development of idiopathic environmental intolerances: Evidence from longitudinal population-based data. Environmental Research.
Slotta, T., Witthöft, M., Gerlach, A. L., & Pohl, A. (in press). The interplay of interoceptive accuracy, facets of interoceptive sensibility, and trait anxiety: A network analysis. Personality and Individual Differences.
Mütze, K., Witthöft, M., Lutz, W., & Bräscher, A.-K. (in press). Matching Research and Practice: Prediction of Individual Patient Progress and Dropout Risk for Basic Routine Outcome Monitoring. Psychotherapy Research.
Szemerszky, R., Dömötör, Z., Witthöft, M., & Köteles, F. (in press). Modern Health Worries and Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance Attributed to Electromagnetic Fields are Associated with Paranoid Ideation. Journal of Psychosomatic Research.
Sarter, L., Heider, J., Kirchner, L., Schenkel, S., Witthöft, M., Rief, W., & Kleinstäuber, M. (in press). Cognitive and emotional variables predicting treatment outcome of cognitive behavior therapies for patients with medically unexplained symptoms: A meta-analysis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research.
Schmidt, A., Brose, A., Kramer, A. C., Schmiedek, F., Witthöft, M., & Neubauer, A. B. (in press). Dynamic relations among COVID-19-related media exposure and worries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychology & Health.
Jungmann, S. M., & Witthöft, M. (in press). Erfassung der Lebendigkeit mentaler Vorstellungsbilder: Adaptation und Validierung deutschsprachiger Versionen des Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) und des Plymouth Sensory Imagery Questionnaire (PSI-Q). Diagnostica.