Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy

The Department of Psychology (project leader: Stefan Lüttke) and the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy were the first to investigate the social-cognitive abilities of adolescents with depression within the SAD study. We hypothesize that parental factors (e.g. mental illness), childhood trauma and genetic factors lead to adverse parent-child interactions (e.g. insecure attachment), which promote a "maldevelopment" of social-cognitive skills. The altered social-cognitive abilities in turn facilitate the development of depressive disorders in adolescence. The study examined 11-17 year old depressed and healthy adolescents of all school types. State-of-the-art methods were used to assess emotion processing and perspective taking, as well as saliva samples to analyze genes related to both depression and social-cognitive abilities.

Project team

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science, University of Tübingen

Dipl.-Psych. Stefan Lüttke

Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Tübingen

Prof. Dr. Annette Conzelmann, Prof. Dr. Tobias Renner.