معرفی
Simon Guendelman serves as a Researcher in the Department of Psychology at Humboldt University of Berlin's Faculty of Life Sciences, affiliated with the Clinical Psychology of Social Interaction group and the Dziobek Lab (dziobek-lab.org). His work integrates clinical psychiatry, neuroscience, and contemplative practices to investigate emotion regulation mechanisms in psychopathology.
His educational background includes:
- Bachelor in Social Sciences and Humanities (2000-2001), University of Chile
- Medical Doctor (2002-2008), University of Chile
- Adult Psychiatry specialization (2009-2012), University of Chile
- Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy training (2012-2014), University of Chile
Guendelman's research examines interpersonal emotion regulation and its impact on attention, empathy, mentalizing, and self-referential processing. He investigates how disruptions in these systems contribute to psychiatric disorders and how mindfulness interventions can modify neural correlates of empathy through affect-cognitive processes. His approach uniquely bridges Buddhist philosophy, relational psychoanalysis, and social neuroscience, focusing on mindfulness as a tool to enhance clinical outcomes via neuroplasticity in the 'social brain'.
His 2014-2016 publications reveal a cohesive trajectory exploring intersubjective neuroscience through three converging lenses: (1) Varela's bio-philosophy applied to psychoanalytic epistemology, (2) neurobiological mechanisms of meditation affecting self-other processing, and (3) clinical applications for trauma and personality disorders. This work establishes mindfulness as a modulator of empathy-mentalization networks beyond attentional mechanisms.
Guendelman currently leads the fMRI study "Does mindfulness modulates empathy and mentalization?", which investigates neural correlates of cognitive/affective empathy and theory of mind before/after mindfulness interventions. This project aims to clarify distinct effects on social cognition subsystems and expand mindfulness mechanisms to include 'social brain' plasticity.
As a core member of the Dziobek Lab, he contributes to research on neurobiological foundations of social interaction, particularly how contemplative practices reshape interpersonal neurodynamics in clinical populations.