Dr David Preece MAPS
Early Career Research Award

Award type: Science 

Dr David Preece is a clinical psychologist and lecturer at Curtin University, where he directs the Perth Emotion and Psychopathology Lab. He is the Chair Elect for the WA branch of the APS College of Clinical Psychologists and the Membership Portfolio Lead for the national committee. 

David’s main research and practice interests are in the understanding, assessment, and treatment of emotional disorders. Much of his work focuses on the key transdiagnostic role that emotion regulation and emotional awareness difficulties (alexithymia) play across a variety of psychopathologies. He has designed and published a range of psychometric questionnaires to enable clinically relevant emotional constructs to be assessed more comprehensively (e.g., the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire, Perth Emotion Regulation Competency Inventory, Emotion Beliefs Questionnaire, and Perth Emotional Reactivity Scale); these measures have since been translated into over 10 languages and are widely used by clinicians and researchers across the world. David has made these measures freely available online, substantially improving access to emotion assessment tools in the field.

David now leads an internationally recognised research program systematically mapping the emotional profiles characterising different mental health disorders, and developing personalised treatment programs targeting emotion regulation and awareness skills.