Tuğba Türk Kurtça

Tuğba Türk Kurtça is an Associate Professor at Trakya University's Faculty of Education, specializing in psychological counseling, forensic psychology, and child mental health. Her work bridges clinical practice with academic research in Turkey's educational context.

Her educational journey includes:

• Bachelor's in Guidance and Psychological Counseling (2010)
• Master's in Psychological Services in Education (2013) focusing on emotional child abuse and school alienation
• Master's in Social Sciences at Forensic Medicine Institute (2017) examining forensic interviews of child sexual abuse victims
• Doctoral degree in Guidance and Psychological Counseling (2018)

Dr. Türk Kurtça's research centers on trauma psychology, digital mental health, and forensic applications. She investigates how childhood trauma manifests in dissociation and school alienation, while pioneering studies on doomscrolling, cyberchondria, and social media addiction among Turkish youth. Her forensic work develops protocols for interviewing child abuse victims, adapting international standards like NICHD to Turkish cultural contexts. She also examines mental health disparities in gifted children and pandemic impacts on preschoolers.

Recent publications (2023-2025) reveal three dominant trends: (1) Digital anxiety syndromes (doomscrolling, cyberchondria) linked to intolerance of uncertainty; (2) Forensic interview techniques for child sexual abuse cases; (3) Cross-cultural analyses of academic procrastination and cyberbullying. Her work consistently applies Turkish cultural lenses to global psychological phenomena, with 60% of recent studies using mixed-methods approaches in Turkish educational settings.

She leads multiple active research initiatives including a TÜBİTAK 1001 project developing psychoeducation for siblings of disabled children (ongoing since 2017), a cross-cultural cyberbullying study (2021), and pandemic-related psychosocial support training (2023). Her grant portfolio demonstrates strong institutional support from Trakya University and national funding bodies, with emphasis on translating research into practical educational interventions.