About Me

A very natural and relaxed conversation with my brilliant Research Assistant, Brier Michelsen

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Psychological Sciences at Macquarie University. I was awarded my PhD in Psychology in 2014, and went on to do postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Minnesota and Macquarie University before being awarded back-to-back fellowships.

I currently hold an NHMRC Investigator Grant working to improve our understanding of the empirical structure of psychopathology based on the specific patterns in which symptoms of mental disorders tend to co-occur. For example, someone who is depressed is likely to also experience anxiety, and someone who has problems with gambling is likely to also struggle with drug or alcohol use.

My research uses these patterns in symptoms and disorders to characterise the nature, causes, and consequences of mental illness across the lifespan.

NHMRC Investigator Grant Project

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Recent Publications

Factor analysis in personality disorders research: Modern issues and illustrations of practical recommendations

A. L. Watts, A. Greene, W. R. Ringwald, M. Forbes, C. M. Brandes, H. Levin-Aspenson, C. Delawalla

Personality Disorders, vol. 14(1), 2023, pp. 105–117

Elemental psychopathology: Distilling constituent symptoms and patterns of repetition in the diagnostic criteria of the DSM-5

M. K. Forbes, B. Neo, O. M. Nezami, E. I. Fried, K. Faure, B. Michelsen, M. Twose, M. Dras

Preprint on PsyArXiv, 2023

Principles and procedures for revising the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology

M. K. Forbes, W. R. Ringwald, T. Allen, D. C. Cicero, L. A. Clark, C. G. DeYoung, N. Eaton, K. Naragon-Gainey, R. Kotov, R. F. Krueger, R. D. Latzman, E. A. Martin, C. J. Ruggero, I. D. Waldman, C. Brandes, E. I. Fried, V. M. Goghari, B. Hankin, S. Sperry, K. Stanton, A. Aftab, D. Lyman, M. Roche, A. G. Wright

Preprint on OSF, 2023

Improving hierarchical models of individual differences: An extension of Goldberg's bass-ackward method.

M. K. Forbes

Psychological Methods, 2023

Difficulties with emotion regulation and weight/shape concerns as predictors of eating disorder behaviors among adolescents.

N. Trompeter, K. Bussey, M. Forbes, S. Griffiths, J. Mond, P. Hay, A. Lonergan, J. Tame, D. Mitchison

Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, vol. 132(1), 2023, pp. 91-100

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