Professor
Director of Clinical Research
Office: Center for Children, Youth, and Families
Mail Address: 203 Spidle Hall
Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849
Tel (334) 844-2644
Fax (334) 844-4515
keilemk@auburn.edu
Ed.D., Harvard University Graduate School of Education, 1996

Research Interests
The prevailing theme of my work is the interconnection of affect regulation and attachment in the development and treatment of problem behaviors of children, adolescents, and adults. The regulation of affect occurs initially with caregivers as part of the attachment process in infancy. Children who have developed affect regulation patterns that interfere with the maintenance of both interpersonal connection and independence are at-risk for the later manifestations of affect dysregulation -- externalizing (e.g., delinquency, aggression) and internalizing (e.g., depression, anxiety, phobia) behaviors, addiction, violence, eating disorders, and criminal activities. Because of my desire to create effective family interventions for treating the behaviors associated with affect regulation gone awry, my theory-focused research program has been directed at understanding what risk and protective factors might be involved in the development of these behaviors during childhood and adolescence. In my intervention-focused research, I developed a six-step intervention program, the Multiple Family Group Intervention (MFGI), for use with incarcerated adolescents/adults and their families/partners to foster re-attachment and more functional affect regulation. With ongoing funding from the Alabama Department of Youth Services, my research team and I conduct and evaluate the MFGI with adolescent sex offenders and their families. I am the principal investigator with my MFT colleagues, Drs. Scott Ketring and Thomas Smith, on a study of the nervous system responses of abused, neglected, and troubled children, adolescents, and adults who are obtaining treatment in our clinic in order to understand the mechanisms of change in the context of therapy. Another extremely important part of this project is that we will also be collecting physiological information from the therapists who are treating this population. Finally, in my method-focused research program I have developed new methods for analyzing longitudinal data and have illustrated how to conduct such analyses.

Selected Publications


(*denotes student author)


*Karakurt, G., & Keiley, M.K. (in press). Cultural lenses with emotionally focused therapy. Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy.

*Karakurt, G., *Kafescioglu, N., Keiley, M.K. (in press). Cross-cultural studies with various methodologies in adult attachment research. In P. Erdman, K. Ng, & S. Metzger (Eds.), Attachment Theory: A Cross-Cultural Understanding and Application. NY: Taylor Francis.