Education
| 2008 | Clinical Psychologist (Professional training in cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy 2002 – 2008 at the Centre for Psychological Psychotherapy, University of Heidelberg, Germany) |
| 2007 | Doctor Rerum Socialium (equivalent to Ph.D.), Summa Cum Laude, Psychology, University of Mannheim, Germany (Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Josef Bailer, Prof. Dr. Fred Rist, and Prof. Dr. Werner W. Wittmann) Thesis: Attentional Bias, Memory Bias, and Symptom Attribution in Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance and Classical Somatoform Disorders |
| 2001 | Diploma in Psychology, University of Mannheim, Germany (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Heinz-Martin Süß). Thesis: Inhibitory control – An explanatory construct for cognitive aging effects? |
| 2001 | Research Assistant "Attention and Working Memory Lab", School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA, USA (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Randall Engle) |
| 1997–2010 | Research Assistant in a project on Working Memory Capacity and Intelligence, University of Mannheim, Germany |
Academic and Clinical Positions
| Since 2014 | Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Mainz, Germany |
| 2013-2014 | Visiting Professor of Health Psychology, University of Mannheim, Germany |
| 2008-2013 | Post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany (Head of department: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hiller) |
| 2011-2012 | Visiting Researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychological Medicine, King's College, London, UK (Supervisor: Dr. James Rubin; Head of department: Prof. Dr. Simon Wessely) |
| 2006-2008 | Psychotherapist in the Mannheim Social Phobia Study (SOPHISMA; Supervisor: Dr. Regina Steil) |
| 2002-2007 | Research assistant at the Department of Clinical Psychology at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Josef Bailer) |
| 2001-2002 | Lectureship in Experimental Psychology at the Department of General Psychology and Methodology, University of Basel, Switzerland (Head of department: Prof. Dr. Klaus Opwis) |
Awards
| 2018 | Excellent teaching award of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany |
| 2018 | Excellent teaching award of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany |
| 2012 | Research Award of the German Association for Behaviour Therapy (DGVT) |
| 2012 | Poster among the Top 11 Poster Selection at the 12th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine, Budapest, Hungary. Poster: How Many Types of Medically Unexplained Symptoms: one or Many, or Both at the Same Time? A Bifactor Approach to the Latent Structure of Somatic Symptoms |
| 2010 | Poster Award (Poster among the Top 15) at the 11th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine, Washington, USA. Poster: How quick can you forget “tumor”? Health anxiety and the ability to remove illness related information from working memory |
| 2006 | Best Young Scientist Award of the Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy Division of the German Psychological Society (DGPs) |
Professional Affiliations
- Association for Psychological Science (APS)
- German Psychological Society (DGPs; Section Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy)
- German Society for Behavioural Medicine (DGVM)
- German Association for Behaviour Therapy (DGVT)
Research Interests
- Experimental assessment of interoception
- Relations between interoception, somatic symptom perception, and emotion regulation
- Processes of emotion regulation and their relationship to mental disorders
- The affective role of mental imagery in psychopathology
- Experimental assessment of attention allocation and cognitive-emotional processing
- Assessment of cognitive biases in psychopathology
- Social intelligence
- Structural equation modelling
- Psychotherapy Research
- Somatoform disorders
- Functional somatic syndromes
- Tactile information processing
Publications
In Press
Petzke, T. M., Elspaß, L., Köteles, F., Van den Bergh, O., & Witthöft, M. (in press). “And how did that make you feel?” - Repeated symptom queries enhance symptom reports elicited by negative affect. Journal of Psychosomatic Research.
Vogt, R., Haas, J., Baumann, L., Sander, A., Klose, C., Riecke, J., Rief, W., Bingel, U., Maser, D., Witthöft, M., Kessler, J., Zugaj, M., Ditzen, B., Glombiewski, J. A. (in press). EFFects of Exposure and Cognitive-behavioral Therapy for chronic BACK pain (‘EFFECT-BACK ‘): Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials.
Schmalbach, I., Steudte-Schmiedgen, S., Osmers, A., Witthöft, M., Drees, P., & Petrowski, K. (in press). Longitudinal Assessment of Hair Cortisol as a Predictor of Psychological Symptoms During COVID-19. Psychoneuroendocrinology.
Petzke, T. M., & Witthöft, M. (in press). The Association of Emotion Regulation and Somatic Symptoms. Psychosomatic Medicine.
Röhrig, B., Witthöft, M., Herpertz, S., & Petrak, F. (in press). “The early bird catches the worm” - Prediction of Early Response and its Importance for Treatment Outcome in a Naturalistic Setting of Cognitive Behavior Therapy". Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy.
Pitron, V., Witthöft, M., Lemogne, C., Léger, D., Clayton, S., & Van den Bergh, O. (in press). How climate-change awareness can provoke physical symptoms. Frontiers in Ecology and Environment.
Tünte, M., Petzke, T. M., Brand, S., Murphy, J., Witthöft, M., Hoehl, S., Weymar, M., & Ventura-Bort, C. (in press). He Who Seeks Finds (Bodily Signals): German Validation of the Interoceptive Attention Scale (IATS) and its relationship with Subclinical Psychopathology. Journal of Personality Assessment.
Pitron, V., Köteles, F. G., Nordin, S., Haanes, J. V., Hillert, L., Léger, D., Lemogne, C., Szemerszky, R., van Kamp, I., van Thriel, C., Witthöft, M.*, & Van den Bergh, O.* (in press). Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Catching up to what kind of science? Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. (*shared senior authorship)
Jungmann, S. M., Gropalis, M., Schenkel, S. K., & Witthöft, M. (in press). Is Cyberchondria specific to Hypochondriasis? Journal of Anxiety Disorders.
Bräscher, A.-K., Brähler, E., Häuser, W., & Witthöft, M. (in press). Further evidence for a dimensional latent structure of health anxiety – taxometric analyses of the Whiteley Index based on two German representative samples. Assessment.
MacKrill, K., Witthöft, M., Wessely, S., & Petrie, K. J. (in press). Health Scares: Tracing their nature, growth and spread. Clinical Psychology in Europe.
Petzke, T. M., Weber, K., Van den Bergh, O., & Witthöft, M. (in press). Illustrating the pathway from affect to somatic symptom: the Affective Picture Paradigm. Cognition & Emotion.
Huth, D., Bräscher, A.-K., Tholl, S., Fiess, J., Birke, G., Herrmann, C., Jöbges, M., Mier, D., & Witthöft, M. (in press). Cognitive-behavioral therapy for patients with post-COVID-19 condition (CBT-PCC): A feasibility trial. Psychological Medicine.
Hennemann, S., Killikelly, C., Hyland, P., Maercker, A., & Witthöft, M. (in press). Somatic symptom distress and ICD-11 prolonged grief in a large intercultural sample. European Journal of Psychotraumatology.
Slotta, T., Wolters, C., Marx, Z., Witthöft, M., Gerlach, A. L., & Pohl, A., (in press). Respiratory Interoception and Pathological Illness Anxiety: Disentangling Bias. Psychosomatic Medicine.
Hovárth, A., Witthöft, M., & Köteles, F. (in press). Is the rubber hand illusion associated with somatic symptom reporting? Biologia Futura.
Brandt, S., Meis, A. C., Tünte, M. R., Murphy, J., Woller, J. P., Jungmann, S. M., Witthöft, M., Hoehl, S., Weymar, M., Hermann, C., & Ventura-Bort, C. (in press). A multi-site German validation of the Interoceptive Accuracy Scale and its relation to psychopathological symptom burden. Communications Psychology.
Klan, T., Diezemann-Prößdorf, A., Guth, A.-L., Gaul, C. & Witthöft, M. (in press). Attacken-Angst bei Migräne: Diagnostik und Behandlung. Der Schmerz.