Anne-Laura Van Harmelen

I am a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow at the Department of Psychiatry, and a fellow of Lucy Cavendish College. I lead the Risk and Resilience group in Cambridge.

Our research aims to understand why some youth with a history of childhood adversity develop mental health disorders, whereas others do not. We revealed the social, psychological and behavioural factors that improve adolescent mental health resilience in adolescents with a history of CA, such as low rumination, high self-esteem, good adolescent friendships and remembering positive events in response to stress.

We also showed that the type of adolescent social support should match the type of CA in order to be beneficial, and that the timing of support plays an important role; in late adolescence friendship support may be more beneficial than family support in increasing resilience.