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Maria Pilar Galiana-Abal, PhD

Maria Pilar Galiana-Abal, PhD

Associate Professor of Psychology

Telephone: 785-248-2560
Email: pilar.galianaabal@ottawa.edu

Ph.D - Clinical Psychology, emphasis in Forensic Neuropsychology, Université Paris VIII
MS - Clinical Psychology, emphasis in Forensic Neuropsychology, Université Paris VIII
MS - Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, emphasis Research Methods in Clinical Psychology,          Université Paris VIII

BA - Thai/Lao Language Literature
BS - General Psychology, Université Paris VIII

Dr Pilar Galiana Abal is a French-educated clinical psychologist specializing in forensic neuropsychology. She teaches Psychology courses at OUKS where she is the Lead Faculty for the Bachelor of Science in Applied Psychology, a new major that she has recently designed.

Dr Galiana Abal’s initial academic training started as social anthropologist studying Pakistani and North Indian rites of passage, and as a linguist specializing in South-East Asian languages. As a clinical psychologist, Dr Galiana Abal has been actively working as a consulting forensic psychologist and behavioral analyst in forensic and criminal cases involving violent crime, terrorist attacks, organizing crisis interventions and psychologically assessing perpetrators and survivors. In France, Dr Galiana Abal acquired solid experience working as a clinical neuropsychologist in both private practice and rehabilitation facilities dedicated to brain injury survivors. In this clinical context, she created a psychotherapy method (“Narrative Expressive Therapy”) that combines art-therapy, narrative therapy and psychodrama that has proven efficient in terms of enhancing acquired executive function, working memory and autobiographical memory deficits. Dr Galiana Abal has an extensive international experience working with clients of culturally diverse backgrounds (tribal, refugees and migrant patients) and with members of the LGBTQIA community, with a particular emphasis in supporting clients with transgender identities during the sex reassignment process.

Some of her main publications involve:

PLANCHE, N., GALIANA y ABAL, P., JOUVENCEL (de), M. (2015). Can we identify clinical features in transgender patients in the process of sex reassignment? (Quelles sont les composantes cliniques du transsexualisme ? A propos de 212 cas de demandeurs de réassignation sexuelle) Médecine Légale du Vivant), 5-6, vol. 58, 1-1.

GALIANA y ABAL, P. (2012).  Divine Transferences. Potentially Therapeutic Aspects of Ritual Offerings in the Rite of Darśan (Transferts vers le divin. Aspects potentiellement thérapeutiques de l‘offrande florale dans la pratique du darśan). Journal des Anthropologies. 123-124, 139-160.
 
GALIANA y ABAL, P. (2009). When God Heals…Darśan as a therapy? In Sébastia, B., Restoring Mental Health in India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 97-124.

Teaching Interests:
PSY 30153  Theories of personality
PSY 31354 Physiological Psychology
PSY 30353  Psychopathology
PSY 37010  Culture, Gender & Psychopathology
PSY 37037 Ethics in Psychology
PSY 37020 Neuropsychology
PSY 37021 TBI, Cognitive & Behavioral Disorders
PSY 37002 Criminal Psychology
PSY 49010 Advanced Criminal Psychopathology
PSY/SOC 20253 Gender & Sexuality
PSY 37040 Psychology and the Law
PSY 37001 Psychology of Terrorism
PSY 37000 Criminal Profiling

Research Interests:
Dr Galiana Abal’s main research focuses on 1) the psychological processes triggered by devotional ritual performance, 2) the emergence of religious experiences and psychotic-like stages secondary to acquired brain injuries, 3) the culturally-related therapeutic processes in diverse populations, and 4) violent acting outs and their potential correlation with neuropsychological disorders.

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