Prof. Dana Atzil-Slonim

Prof. Dana Atzil-Slonim is a clinical psychologist, instructor, associate professor, and head of the psychotherapy research laboratory at the community clinic of the Bar-Ilan University Department of Psychology. As the head of the laboratory, Dr. Atzil-Slonim has led dozens of groundbreaking studies in the field of personalized mental health.

The studies led by Dr. Atzil-Slonim utilize advanced artificial-intelligence technologies to analyze multi-dimensional data collected during therapy sessions. These studies have the potential of revolutionizing mental health research.

The laboratory headed by Prof. Atzil-Slonim is one of the largest and most advanced psychotherapy research clinics in the world. This community clinic provides subsidized mental health care to approximately 300 patients a year and incorporates research with advanced technologies that facilitate monitoring, observation, and feedback to therapists. During the therapy sessions, the laboratory collects multilayered information - linguistic, visual, physiological, and hormonal data - and stores it on a large database, and then in collaboration with leading researchers in the field of machine learning, the laboratory staff analyzes the information in order to understand which factors lead to significant psychotherapeutic achievements, and how treatment can be personalized to individual patients.

These innovative research methods allow researchers to establish their research on empirical measures and rely on a huge database of top-quality multilayered information and artificial intelligence tools, which in turn allows the extraction significant statistical insights and the identification of subtleties that were previously hidden from view.

In addition to being an associate professor, a leading researcher, and head of the laboratory, Prof. Atzil-Slonim is also the manager of the Bar-Ilan Impact Center, which focuses on refining and “fine tuning” treatment for depression.

Prof. Atzil-Slonim has been focusing in recent years on the research of mutual interpersonal dynamics in the therapist-patient relationship and the use of machine learning for the identification of mechanisms that promote positive changes during therapy in a manner tailored to the patient's needs.

Prof. Atzil-Slonim holds a PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.