ZAC E IMEL portrait
  • Director of Clinical Training, Educational Psychology
  • Adjunct Professor, Psychiatry
  • Professor, Educational Psychology
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Publications

  • Atzil-Slonim D & Soma CS (2023). Facilitating dyadic synchrony in psychotherapy sessions: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychotherapy research. Vol. 33, 898917898-917. Published, 08/01/2023.
  • Soma CS, Wampold B & Flemotomos N (2023). The Silent Treatment?: Changes in patient emotional expression after silence. Counselling and psychotherapy research. Vol. 23, 378388378-388. Published, 07/01/2023.
  • Zhang X, Tanana M & Weitzman L (2023). You never know what you are going to get: Large-scale assessment of therapists' supportive counseling skill use. Psychotherapy (Chicago, Ill.). Vol. 60, 149158149-158. Published, 06/01/2023.
  • Martinez VR, Flemotomos N, Ardulov V & Somandepalli K (2023). Identifying Therapist and Client Personae for Therapeutic Alliance Estimation. Interspeech. Vol. 2019, 190119051901-1905. Published, 02/01/2023.
  • Gibson J, Atkins DC & Creed T (2023). Multi-label Multi-task Deep Learning for Behavioral Coding. IEEE transactions on affective computing. Vol. 13, 508518508-518. Published, 02/01/2023.
  • Goldberg SB, Babins-Wagner R & Imel ZE (2023). Threat alert: The effect of outliers on the alliance-outcome correlation. Journal of counseling psychology. Vol. 70, 818981-89. Published, 01/01/2023.
  • Creed TA, Kuo PB, Oziel R, Reich D & Thomas M (2022). Knowledge and Attitudes Toward an Artificial Intelligence-Based Fidelity Measurement in Community Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Supervision. Administration and policy in mental health. Vol. 49, 343356343-356. Published, 04/01/2022.
  • Flemotomos N, Martinez VR, Chen Z, Singla K, Ardulov V, Peri R, Caperton DD & Gibson J (2022). Automated evaluation of psychotherapy skills using speech and language technologies. Behavior research methods. Vol. 54, 690711690-711. Published, 04/01/2022.
  • Chen Z, Flemotomos N & Ardulov V (2021). Feature Fusion Strategies for End-to-End Evaluation of Cognitive Behavior Therapy Sessions. Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Annual International Conference. Vol. 2021, 183618391836-1839. Published, 12/01/2021.
  • Tanana MJ, Soma CS, Kuo PB & Bertagnolli NM (2021). How do you feel? Using natural language processing to automatically rate emotion in psychotherapy. Behavior research methods. Vol. 53, 206920822069-2082. Published, 10/01/2021.
  • Owen J, Coleman J & Drinane JM (2021). Psychotherapy racial/ethnic disparities in treatment outcomes: The role of university racial/ethnic composition. Journal of counseling psychology. Vol. 68, 418424418-424. Published, 08/01/2021.
  • Park J, Kotzias D, Kuo P, Logan Iv RL, Merced K & Singh S (2021). Detecting conversation topics in primary care office visits from transcripts of patient-provider interactions. (pp. 149315041493-1504). Vol. 26. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA. Published, 02/01/2021.
  • Goldberg SB, Tanana M, Imel ZE, Atkins DC, Hill CE & Anderson T (2021). Can a computer detect interpersonal skills? Using machine learning to scale up the Facilitative Interpersonal Skills task. Psychotherapy research : journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Vol. 31, 281-288. Published, 02/01/2021.
  • Goldberg SB, Flemotomos N, Martinez VR, Tanana MJ, Kuo PB, Pace BT, Villatte JL, Georgiou PG, Van Epps J, Imel ZE, Narayanan SS & Atkins DC (2020). Machine learning and natural language processing in psychotherapy research: Alliance as example use case. Journal of counseling psychology. Vol. 67, 438-448. Published, 10/01/2020.
  • Merced K, Imel ZE, Baldwin SA, Fischer H, Yoon T, Stewart C, Simon G, Ahmedani B, Beck A, Daida Y, Hubley S, Rossom R, Waitzfelder B, Zeber JE & Coleman KJ (2020). Provider Contributions to Disparities in Mental Health Care. Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.). Vol. 71, 765-771. Published, 10/01/2020.
  • Goldberg SB, Baldwin SA, Merced K, Caperton DD, Imel ZE, Atkins DC & Creed T (2020). The Structure of Competence: Evaluating the Factor Structure of the Cognitive Therapy Rating Scale. Behavior therapy. Vol. 51, 113-122. Published, 08/01/2020.
  • Soma CS, Baucom BRW, Xiao B, Butner JE, Hilpert P, Narayanan S, Atkins DC & Imel ZE (2020). Coregulation of therapist and client emotion during psychotherapy. Psychotherapy research : journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Vol. 30, 591-603. Published, 07/01/2020.
  • Baldwin SA & Imel ZE (2020). Studying specificity in psychotherapy with meta-analysis is hard. Psychotherapy research : journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Vol. 30, 294-296. Published, 06/01/2020.
  • Baldwin SA & Imel ZE (2020). Studying specificity in psychotherapy with meta-analysis is hard. Psychotherapy research : journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Vol. 30, 294-296. Published, 02/01/2020.
  • Goldberg SB, Baldwin SA, Merced K, Caperton DD, Imel ZE, Atkins DC & Creed T (2020). The Structure of Competence: Evaluating the Factor Structure of the Cognitive Therapy Rating Scale. Behavior therapy. Vol. 51, 113-122. Published, 02/01/2020.
  • Owen J, Drinane JM & Kivlighan M (2020). Are high-performing therapists both effective and consistent? A test of therapist expertise. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology. Vol. 87, 114911561149-1156. Published, 02/01/2020.
  • Park J, Kotzias D, Kuo P, Logan Iv RL, Merced K, Singh S, Tanana M, Karra Taniskidou E, Lafata JE, Atkins DC, Tai-Seale M, Imel ZE & Smyth P (2020). Detecting conversation topics in primary care office visits from transcripts of patient-provider interactions. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA. Vol. 26, 1493-1504. Published, 01/01/2020.
  • Imel ZE, Pace BT, Soma CS, Tanana M, Hirsch T, Gibson J, Georgiou P, Narayanan S & Atkins DC (2019). Design feasibility of an automated, machine-learning based feedback system for motivational interviewing. Psychotherapy (Chicago, Ill.). Vol. 56, 318-328. Published, 11/01/2019.
  • Chen, Z. (2019). Prediction of Therapist Behaviors in Addiction Counseling by Exploiting Class Confusions. Proceedings of IEEE - International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP). Published, 02/04/2019.
  • Imel, Z.E., Pace, B.T.*, Soma, C.S.*, Tanana, M.*, Gibson, J.*, Hirsch, T., Georgiou, P.G., Narayanan, S., Atkins, D.A. (in press). Initial Development and Evaluation of an Automated, Interactive, Web-based therapist feedback System for Motivational Interviewing Fidelity. Psychotherapy. Accepted, 12/01/2018.
  • Caperton, D.D.*, Atkins, D.C., & Imel, Z.E. (2018). Rating motivational interviewing fidelity from thin slices. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 32, 434-441.. Published, 11/20/2018.
  • Hallgren, K. A., Dembe, A.*, Pace, B. T.*, Imel, Z. E., & Atkins, D.C. (2018). Variability in motivational interviewing adherence across sessions, providers, sites, and research contexts. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 84, 30-41. Published, 11/12/2018.
  • Bryan, C.J., Baucom, B.R., Crenshaw, A., Imel, Z.E, Atkins, D.C., Clemans, T.A., …, & Rudd, M.D. (2018). Associations of patient-rated emotional bond and vocally encoded emotional arousal among clinicians and acutely suicidal military personnel. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 86, 372-383. Published, 08/14/2018.
  • Pace BT, Dembe A, Soma CS, Baldwin SA, Atkins DC & Imel ZE (2017). A multivariate meta-analysis of motivational interviewing process and outcome. Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors. Vol. 31, 524-533. Published, 12/01/2017.
  • Zeber JE, Coleman KJ, Fischer H, Yoon TK, Ahmedani BK, Beck A, Hubley S, Imel ZE, Rossom RC, Shortreed SM, Stewart C, Waitzfelder BE & Simon GE (2017). The impact of race and ethnicity on rates of return to psychotherapy for depression. Depression and anxiety. Vol. 34, 1157-1163. Published, 12/01/2017.
  • Hallgren KA, Dembe A, Pace BT, Imel ZE, Lee CM & Atkins DC (2017). Variability in motivational interviewing adherence across sessions, providers, sites, and research contexts. Journal of substance abuse treatment. Vol. 84, 30-41. Published, 12/01/2017.
  • Gaut G, Steyvers M, Imel ZE, Atkins DC & Smyth P (2017). Content Coding of Psychotherapy Transcripts Using Labeled Topic Models. IEEE journal of biomedical and health informatics. Vol. 21, 476-487. Published, 11/01/2017.
  • Imel ZE, Budge S & Owen J (2017). Introduction to special section on advanced methodology: Counseling the dog to wag its methodological tail. Journal of counseling psychology. Vol. 64, 601-603. Published, 11/01/2017.
  • Hirsch T, Merced K, Narayanan S, Imel ZE & Atkins DC (2017). Designing Contestability: Interaction Design, Machine Learning, and Mental Health. DIS. Designing Interactive Systems (Conference). Vol. 2017, 95-99. Published, 09/01/2017.
  • Perry NS, Baucom KJW, Bourne S, Butner J, Crenshaw AO, Hogan JN, Imel ZE, Wiltshire TJ & Baucom BRW (2017). Graphic methods for interpreting longitudinal dyadic patterns from repeated-measures actor-partner interdependence models. Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43). Vol. 31, 592-603. Published, 08/01/2017.
  • Imel ZE, Caperton DD, Tanana M & Atkins DC (2017). Technology-enhanced human interaction in psychotherapy. Journal of counseling psychology. Vol. 64, 385-393. Published, 07/01/2017.
  • Pace, B.P., Xiao, B., Soma, T., Dembe, A., Stevyers, M., Atkins, D.A., Narayanan, S., & Imel, Z.E. (2016). What about the words: Natural language processing in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy Bulletin.. Published, 09/05/2016.
  • Can D, Marín RA, Georgiou PG, Imel ZE, Atkins DC & Narayanan SS (2016). "It sounds like...": A natural language processing approach to detecting counselor reflections in motivational interviewing. Journal of counseling psychology. Vol. 63, 343-50. Published, 04/01/2016.
  • Tanana M, Hallgren KA, Imel ZE, Atkins DC & Srikumar V (2016). A Comparison of Natural Language Processing Methods for Automated Coding of Motivational Interviewing. Journal of substance abuse treatment. Vol. 65, 43-50. Published, 04/01/2016.
  • Dunn C, Darnell D, Atkins DC, Hallgren KA, Imel ZE, Bumgardner K, Owens M & Roy-Byrne P (2016). Within-Provider Variability in Motivational Interviewing Integrity for Three Years after MI Training: Does Time Heal?. Journal of substance abuse treatment. Vol. 65, 74-82. Published, 04/01/2016.
  • Xiao B, Imel ZE, Georgiou P, Atkins DC & Narayanan SS (2016). Computational Analysis and Simulation of Empathic Behaviors: a Survey of Empathy Modeling with Behavioral Signal Processing Framework. Current psychiatry reports. Vol. 18, 49. Published, 03/01/2016.
  • Gaut, G., Steyvers, M., Imel, Z.E., Atkins, D.C., Smyth, P. (2015). Automated global and localized content coding of psychotherapy transcripts using labeled topic models. IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics. Epub ahead of print. Published, 12/02/2015.
  • Xiao B, Imel ZE, Georgiou PG, Atkins DC & Narayanan SS (2015). "Rate My Therapist": Automated Detection of Empathy in Drug and Alcohol Counseling via Speech and Language Processing. PloS one. Vol. 10, e0143055. Published, 12/01/2015.
  • Brown HJ, Andreason H, Melling AK, Imel ZE & Simon GE (2015). Problems With Using Patient Retention in the Evaluation of Mental Health Providers: Differences in Type of Dropout. Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.). Vol. 66, 879-82. Published, 08/01/2015.
  • Imel ZE, Sheng E, Baldwin SA & Atkins DC (2015). Removing very low-performing therapists: A simulation of performance-based retention in psychotherapy. Psychotherapy (Chicago, Ill.). Vol. 52, 329-36. Published, 08/01/2015.
  • Tao KW, Owen J, Pace BT & Imel ZE (2015). A meta-analysis of multicultural competencies and psychotherapy process and outcome. Journal of counseling psychology. Vol. 62, 337-50. Published, 07/01/2015.
  • Bryan, C.J., Griffith, J., Pace, B.T.*, Hinkson, K., Bryan, A., Clemans, T., & Imel, Z.E. (2015). Combat exposure and risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors among military personnel and veterans: a systematic review. Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior. Published, 03/02/2015.
  • Imel ZE, Steyvers M & Atkins DC (2015). Computational psychotherapy research: scaling up the evaluation of patient-provider interactions. Psychotherapy (Chicago, Ill.). Vol. 52, 19-30. Published, 03/01/2015.
  • Lord, S. P., Can, D., Yi, M. S. K., Marín, R. A., Dunn, C. W., Imel, Z.E., Georgiou, P., Narayanan, S., Steyvers, M., & Atkins, D. C. (2015). Advancing methods for reliably assessing motivational interviewing fidelity using the Motivational Interviewing Skills Code. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 49, 50-57. Published, 01/08/2015.
  • Dunn, Chris, Darnell, Doyanne, Yi, Sheng Kung Michael, Steyvers, Mark, Bumgardner, Kristin, Lord, Sarah Peregrine, Imel, Zac & Atkins, David C. (2014). Should We Trust our Judgments about the Proficiency of Motivational Interviewing Counselors?A Glimpse at the Impact of Low Inter-rater Reliability. MITRIP. Vol. 1(3), 38. Published, 11/24/2014.
  • Baldwin, S.A., Imel, Z.E., Braithwaite, S., & Atkins, D.C. (2014). Analyzing multiple outcomes using multivariate multilevel models. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 82(5), 920-30. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035628. Published, 03/01/2014.
  • Imel, Z.E., Laska, K., Jakupcak, M., & Simpson, T. (2013). Meta-analysis of dropout in treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. [Epub ahead of print]. PMCID: Pending. Published, 02/2013.
  • Imel, Z.E., Hubbard, R., Rutter, C., & Simon, G.E. (2013). Patient rated alliance as a measure of therapist performance in two clinical settings. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 81(1), 154-165. PMCID: Pending. Published, 02/2013.

Research Keywords

  • mental health counseling
  • Training, psychotherapy
  • Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities
  • Psychotherapy
  • Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning
  • Mental Health Services
  • Computational Psychotherapy

Presentations

  • Imel, Z.E., Pendergraft, B., Pace, B., Pruett, J., & Tanana, M. (April, 2023). Using AI to Scale Suicide Risk Assessment for 988. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Suicidology. Portland, Oregon. Conference Paper, Presented, 04/01/2023.
  • Imel, Z.E. (January, 2020). The Digital Health Space: Updates on Mental Health and Technology. Lunch and Learn presented to University Counseling Center. Other, Presented, 01/01/2020.
  • Imel, Z.E. (October, 2019). “The Psychotherapy Debate: Why does it matter, and what’s next?” Invited Inservice. Jordan School District. Invited Talk/Keynote, Presented, 10/01/2019.
  • Tanana, M., Dembe, A., Soma, C.S., Atkins, D.C., Imel, Z.E., & Srikumar, V. (June, 2016). Is Sentiment in Movies the Same as Sentiment in Psychotherapy? Comparisons Using a New Psychotherapy Sentiment Database. Paper presented at Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics HLT, Computational Linguistics and Clinical Psychology Workshop (CLPsych), San Diego, CA. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 07/01/2016.
  • Pace, B. T., Dembe, A., Soma, C. S., Tanana, M., Caperton, D. D., Merced, K., Bellefontaine, W., Gibson, J., Hirsch, T., Narayanan, S., Atkins, D. C., & Imel, Z. E. (2016, March). Developing automated therapist feedback for Motivational Interviewing: The Counselor Observer Ratings Expert for MI (CORE-MI). Poster presented at the annual meeting of the University of Utah’s College of Education Student Research Fair, Salt Lake City, UT. Presentation, Presented, 03/09/2016.
  • Xiao, B., Imel, Z.E., Atkins, D., Georgiou, P., & Narayanan, S. (September, 2015). Analyzing Speech Rate Entrainment and Its Relation to Therapist Empathy in Drug Addiction Counseling. Paper presented at Interspeech, Dresden, Germany. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 09/2015.
  • Chakravarthula, S.N., Xiao, B., Imel, Z.E., Atkins, D., Georgiou, P., & Narayanan, S. (September, 2015). Assessing Empathy using Static and Dynamic Behavior Models based on Therapist's Language in Addiction Counseling. Paper presented at Interspeech, Dresden, Germany. Conference Paper, Refereed, Accepted, 09/2015.
  • Dembe,A., & Imel, Z.E. (June, 2015). Co-variation of therapist and client emotional valence in Motivational Interviewing. Poster presented at the 46th annual meeting of the International Society for Psychotherapy Research, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Other, Presented, 06/2015.
  • Pace, B., & Imel, Z.E. (June, 2015). Using the wisdom of the client crowd to predict therapist performance. Poster presented at the 46th annual meeting of the International Society for Psychotherapy Research, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Other, Presented, 06/2015.
  • Imel, Z.E. (June, 2015). Computational approaches to mining the raw data of psychotherapy. In O. Gelo (Chair), Text analysis in psychotherapy research: Between quantitative and qualitative approaches. Participant in structured Discussion at the 46th annual meeting of the International Society for Psychotherapy Research, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Presentation, Presented, 06/2015.
  • Bryan, C.J., Griffith, J., Pace, B.T., Hinkson, K., Bryan, A.O., Clemans, T.A., & Imel, Z.E. (June 2015). Combat exposure and risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors among military personnel and veterans: a systematic review and meta-analysis. In C.J. Bryan (Chair), Advances in understanding suicide in the U.S. military. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, Montreal, Canada. Presentation, Presented, 06/2015.
  • Imel, Z.E., Sheng, E., Baldwin, S.A., & Atkins, D.C. (June, 2015). Removing very low-performing therapists: A simulation of performance-based retention in psychotherapy. Paper presented at the 46th annual meeting of the International Society for Psychotherapy Research, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Presentation, Presented, 06/2015.
  • Imel, Z.E., Xiao, B., Georgiou, P., Narayanan, S., & Atkins, D. (May, 2015). Scaling up the evaluation of Motivational Interviewing: Modeling MI adherence with statistical text mining and speech signal processing. In S. Martino (Chair), Training Motivational Interviewing: New Directions in Research. Symposium presented at the 27th Association of Psychological Science Annual Convention, New York, NY.  . Presentation, Presented, 05/2015.
  • Tanana, M.*, Hallgren, K. Imel, Z.E., Atkins, D.C., Smyth, P., & Srikumar, V. (2015). Recursive Neural Networks for Coding Therapist and Patient Behavior in Motivational Interviewing. Paper presented at Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics HLT, Computational Linguistics and Clinical Psychology Workshop (CLPsych), Denver, CO. Conference Paper, Refereed, Accepted, 04/2015.
  • Xiao, B., Bone, D., Van Segbroeck, Imel, Z.E., Atkins, D.C., Georgiou, P.G., & Narayanan, S.S. (September, 2014). Modeling therapist empathy through prosody in drug addiction counseling. Paper presented at Interspeech, Singapore. Conference Paper, Refereed, Presented, 09/03/2014.
  • Imel, Z.E. (Chair; August, 2013). Interpersonal Influence in Psychotherapy. Symposium sponsored by Section for the Promotion of Psychotherapy Science (Division 17; Counseling Psychology) at the 121st Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI. Other, Presented, 08/2013.
  • Imel, Z.E., Hunt, T., Barco, J., Brown, H., Kelly, A., & Atkins, D. (August, 2013). Coordination of Emotion Word Use in Therapist--Client Psychotherapy Dyads. In (Zac Imel, Chair) Interpersonal Influence in Psychotherapy. Symposium sponsored by Section for the Promotion of Psychotherapy Science (Division 17; Counseling Psychology) at the 121st Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Honolulu, HI. Presentation, Presented, 08/2013.

Research Groups

  • Kelley, Alex, Graduate Student. Educational Psychology/Counseling. 09/01/2012 - 05/01/2013.
  • Hunt, Tyler, Graduate Student. Psychology/ MSTAT. 09/01/2012 - 05/01/2013.
  • Melling, Amy, Graduate Student. 05/01/2012 - 05/01/2014.