Lisa Wallner Samstag

Lisa Wallner Samstag is a licensed clinical psychologist, a psychoanalyst, and a tenured professor in the Department of Psychology at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University. Areas of clinical specialization include: treatment of depression and anxiety related to trauma, loss, and lifespan development for women; identity issues in the response to infertility and transition to motherhood; relationship and career struggles.  In addition to her clinical practice of adult psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy supervision/consultation, Dr. Samstag conducts research on psychotherapy process-outcome and personality-developmental issues.

Dr. Samstag received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the City University of New York (1998), and her Certificate in Psychoanalysis from the William Alanson White Institute (2009). She is also a graduate of Queen’s University (B.A. Honors in Psychology, 1986) and the University of Toronto (Institute of Child Study, Dip.C.S., 1988). Dr. Samstag has been on faculty in the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at LIU-Brooklyn since 1999, where she is currently Director of Psychotherapy Research.

Select Publications and Presentations: 

Van Kirk Levin, K.K. & Samstag, L.W. (June, 2017). Psychological distress in women presenting for first-time in vitro fertilization: Relationships among maternal identity centrality, grief, and psychopathology. Presented at the International Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Mulay, A.L., West, M. L., Samstag, L. W., & Diamond, E. (2017). Negative body attitudes as a risk factor for non-suicidal self-injury among college students. Suicidology Online, 8, 1-9.

Samstag, L.W. & Samstag, N. (2016). Not your mother’s identity: Good enough parenting in the age of maximization. In S. Tuber (Ed.), Parenting: Contemporary clinical perspectives (pp. 27-42). New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Simon, S., Cain, N.M., Samstag, L.W., Meehan, K.B., & Muran, J.C. (2015). Assessing interpersonal subtypes in depression. Journal of Personality Assessment, 24, 1-10. 

Detrixhe, J.J., Samstag, L.W., Penn, L.S., & Wong, P.S. (2014). A lonely idea: Solitude’s separation from psychological research and theory. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 50, 310-331.

Utecht, E. & Samstag, L.W. (2013). Intervention frequency, working alliance, dropout, and outcome in brief psychotherapy: A nonlinear relationship model. Psychotherapy Bulletin, 48 (3), 9, 15.

Samstag, L. W. (2012). Introduction to the special section on ethical issues in clinical writing. Psychotherapy, 49, 1-2. 

Muran, J.C., Safran, J.D., Gorman, B. S., Samstag, L.W., Eubanks-Carter, C., & Winston, A. (2009). The relationship of early alliance ruptures and their resolution to process and outcome in three time-limited psychotherapies for personality disorders. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 46, 233-248.

Catay, Z., Allen, R., & Samstag, L.W. (2008). Maternal regulation strategies in the United States and Turkey: A brief report. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 39, 644-649.

Samstag, L.W., Muran, J.C., Wachtel, P.L., Slade, A., Safran, J.D., & Winston, A. (2008). Evaluating negative process: A comparison of working alliance, interpersonal behavior, and narrative coherency among three psychotherapy outcome conditions. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 62, 165-194.                           

Samstag, L.W., Muran, J.C., & Safran, J.D. (2004). Defining and identifying alliance ruptures. In D. Charman (Ed.), Core concepts in brief dynamic psychotherapy (pp. 187-214). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.