Sarah
Bloch-Elkouby
1165 Morris Park Ave, Bronx, NY 10461
PhD, Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University
MA, Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University
BSW, Weisfeld School of Social Work at Bar-Ilan University
LLB, The Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Dr. Sarah Bloch-Elkouby is an Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology in the Clinical PsyD Program at the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology where she serves as the co-chair of the psychodynamic training track and the psychotherapy research program. With a decade of clinical and research experience in academic hospital settings, she integrates suicide prevention research with psychotherapy process and outcome research.
Prior to joining the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Dr. Bloch-Elkouby was the supervising psychologist on the adult and geriatric inpatient unit 6 Karpas at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, where she trained dozens of psychology and psychiatry trainees in the assessment and treatment of patients at acute risk for suicidal behaviors.
She maintains a part-time faculty position at the Mount Sinai Behavioral Health Center, where she trains mental health providers in psychotherapy with high-risk patients and serves as a co-investigator at the Galynker Lab for Suicide Research and Prevention. She also serves as a faculty at the Center for Alliance-Focused Training the Alliance-Focused where she provides clinical training and supervision in the Alliance-Focused Training approach.
Dr. Bloch-Elkouby’s grant-funded research program strives to bridge the gap between research and practice, on the one hand, and between suicide prevention and psychotherapy research, on the other. As such, her program entails two distinct, and yet intertwined domains: (1) suicide prevention, with a focus on developing empirically supported interventions to assess and treat suicidal crises as well as using artificial intelligence to train clinicians in effective approaches to assess and treat imminent risk among diverse patients; (2) psychotherapy process research, with a focus on clinicians’ ability to develop strong alliances and provide effective multi-cultural therapy.
In her teaching, Dr. Bloch-Elkouby strives to convey her passion for clinical psychology and for human connections. She brings clinical materials to her classes to illustrate the concepts discussed and bring them to live. She also encourages students to take ownership of their learning and to write academic and research papers on topics they are truly passionate about.
Awards and recognitions
2023-2025: Bergin and Garfield Emerging Scholar Award, Society for Psychotherapy Research
2019-202: Career Development Leadership Award, Anxiety and Depression Association of America
2012-2017: Graduate Assistantship, Derner School of Psychology
205-2016: Runner Up, George Stricker Research Fellowship, Derner School of Psychology
2014-2015: Teaching Fellowship, Derner School of Psychology
2014-2015: Commendation for Excellence, Derner School of Psychology
2014- 2015: Sylvia Sanger Foundation Award for Psychotherapy Research, Derner School of Psychology
Grant Support
Effectiveness of Diagnostic vs. Symptom-Only Suicide Crisis Syndrome Assessment (SCS-A) for Post-Discharge Suicide Prevention. Focus Grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention ($1,500,000). Role: Co-Investigator. PI: Igor Galynker, MD, PhD. Awarded: May 2023.
Enhancing Suicide Risk Assessment and Prevention among Diverse Adolescents Using Virtual Human Interactions. Young Investigator Grant from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention ($90,000). Role: PI. Initiated: April 2022.
Different but Allied? Exploring the Relational Dynamics of Multi-Cultural Therapy Dyads and their Impact on the Process and Outcome of Therapy. Small Collaborative Grant from the Society for Psychotherapy Research (with Sigal Zilcha-Mano, PhD, Haifa University), the Society for Psychotherapy Research. ($5,000). Role: Co-PI. Awarded: September 2020.
Toward a Better Understanding of the Overlap Between Alliance Ruptures and Racial Microaggressions. Beginning Scholar Pilot Grant from the Psychoanalytic Fund for Research, American Psychoanalytic Association. ($5,000). Role: PI. Awarded: September 2019.
When Racial Biases Stand In Our Way: Toward A Better Understanding Of Racial Microaggressions and Alliance in Early Treatment. Early Career Diversity Research Grant, Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, APA Division 29. ($5,000). Role: PI. Awarded: August 2019.
Bloch-Elkouby Lab Students' Grants and Awards
Implicit Racial Bias and Clinician Emotional Responses in Psychotherapy: A Virtual Interaction Study. Conference Travel Award from The North American Chapter of the Society for Psychotherapy Research ($1,000). Role: Research Mentor. Awardee: Ronit Shvarzman. Awarded: June 2025.
Self-Compassion and the Therapeutic Alliance: A Collaborative Qualitative Study on Patient and Therapist Perspectives on Recovery from Suicidality. John and Elaine Altmaier Depression Research Grant awarded by the North American Chapter of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. ($3,000). Role: Mentor. PIs: Alexis Aberman and Talia Rosen. Awarded: April 20205.
From Suicidality to Recovery: A Qualitative Study On The Lived Experiences of Suicide Attempt Survivors. Predoctoral Grant awarded by the Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy, APA Division 29 ($500). Role: Mentor. PI: Alexis Aberman. Awarded: February 2025.
2025
**Bloch-Elkouby, S., Johnson, B., Chen, J. El Hayek, R., Jones, A., Eid, T., Gomes de Siqueira, A., Apter, Y., Yao, H., Lok, B., Foster, A., Galynker, I. (2025). Can training mental health clinicians in emotional awareness using virtual patient interactions improve the therapeutic alliance and contribute to reducing patients’ suicidal thoughts? Psychiatry Research.
Galynker, I., Cohen, L., Prekas, A. S., King, M., Apter Levy, Y, & Bloch-Elkouby, S. (2025). Suicide Crisis Syndrome: Examining Supporting Evidence and Barriers to Diagnostic Validity. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 16, 1627463.
Lawrence, O. C., Rogers, M. L., Wolfe, A., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Peterkin, D., Richards, J., Bafna, A., & Galynker, I. (2025). Examining mental health clinicians’ perspectives on the use of virtual patient interactions as a tool for clinical training.
**Bloch-Elkouby, S., Jones, A., Shvarzman, R., Bhise, A., Kothari, M., & Goncearenco, I. (2025). Suicide, Theories of. In D. G. Friedman-Wheeler & A. Wenzel (Eds.) Sage Encyclopedia of Mood and Anxiety Disorders. (In Press)
**Goncearenco, I., Bhise, A., Tortora, J., Shi, R., & Bloch-Elkouby, S. (2025). Suicide, Preparatory Behaviors. In D. G. Friedman-Wheeler & A. Wenzel (Eds.) Sage Encyclopedia of Mood and Anxiety Disorders. (In Press)
2024
**Boritz, T., Bloch-Elkouby, S., DiBartolomeo, A., & Aberman, A. Alliance Rupture and Repair Processes in Borderline Personality Disorder. (2024). In N. Kazantzis (Ed.) Alliance Rupture Repair in Cognitive Behavioral Therapies. Springer Nature. (In Press)
Galynker, I., Bloch-Elkouby, S., & Cohen, L. (2024). Suicide crisis syndrome: a specific diagnosis to aid suicide prevention. World Psychiatry 23 (3), 362-363
*Bloch-Elkouby, S., Rogers, M., Goncearenco, I., Yanez, N., Nemeroff, C., Chennapragada, L., Cohen, L., & Galynker, I. (2024). The Narrative Crisis Model of Suicide: A Review of Empirical Evidence for an Innovative Dynamic Model of Suicide and a comparison with other theoretical frameworks. Personalized Medicine in Psychiatry, 45, 100131.
*Rogers, M., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Goncearenco I., Cohen, L., Nemeroff, C., & Galynker, I. (2024). The Narrative Crisis Model of Suicide as a Framework for Suicide Prevention. Personalized Medicine in Psychiatry 45, 100130.
De Luca, G. P., Parghi, N., El Hayek, R., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Peterkin, D., Wolfe, A. & Galynker, I. (2024). Machine learning approach for the development of a crucial tool in suicide prevention: The Suicide Crisis Inventory-2 (SCI-2) Short Form. PLoS one, 19(5), e0299048.
Yao, H., Gomes de Siqueira, A., Rogers, M. L., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Lawrence, O., Sarli, G., ... & Lok, B. (2024). The impact of scaffolded and non-scaffolded suicidal virtual human interaction training on clinician emotional self-awareness, empathic communication, and clinical efficacy. BMC medical education, 24(1), 413.
Sarli, G., Rogers, M. L., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Lawrence, O. C., Gomes de Siqueira, A., Yao, H., ... & Galynker, I. (2024). Using Virtual Patients to Assess and Improve Clinicians’ Emotional Self-awareness: a Randomized Controlled Study. Academic Psychiatry, 48(1), 18-28.
2023
Bloch‐Elkouby, S., Zilcha‐Mano, S., Rogers, M. L., Park, J. Y., Manlongat, K., Krumerman, M., & Galynker, I. (2023). Who are the patients who deny suicidal intent? Exploring patients' characteristics associated with self‐disclosure and denial of suicidal intent. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 147(2), 205-216. https://doi.org/10.1111/acps.13511
Cohen, L.J., Hernandez, M., Mokhtar, R. Richards, J., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Rogers, M., & Galynker, I. (2023). Stressful Life Events and Near-term Suicidal Risk in a Clinical Population. Psychiatr Q 94, 467–482 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-023-10038-7
Cohen, L. J., Imbastaro, B., Peterkin, D., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Wolfe, A., & Galynker, I. (2023). A suicide-specific diagnosis–The case for. Crisis, 44(3). https://doi.org/10.1027/0227-5910/a000911
Muran, J. C., Eubanks, C. F., Lipner, L. M., & Bloch-Elkouby, S. (2023). Renegotiating tasks or goals as rupture repair: A task analysis in a cognitive–behavioral therapy for personality disorder. Psychotherapy research, 33(1), 16-29. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2022.2079439
Park, J. Y., Rogers, M. L., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Richards, J. A., Lee, S., Galynker, I., & You, S. (2023). Factor structure and validation of the revised Suicide Crisis Inventory in a Korean population. Psychiatry investigation, 20(2), 162-173. https://doi.org/10.30773/pi.2022.0208
Sarli G., Rogers, M. L., Bloch‑Elkouby, S., Lawrence, O., Gomes de Siqueira, A., Yao, H., Lok, B., Foster, A., & Galynker, I. (2023). Using Virtual Patients to Assess and Improve Clinicians’ Emotional Self‑awareness: a Randomized Controlled Study. Academic Psychiatry (In Press). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-023-01909-z
2022
Barzilay, S., Gagnon, A., Yaseen, Z. S., Chennapragada, L., Lloveras, L., Bloch‐Elkouby, S., & Galynker, I. (2022). Associations between clinicians' emotion regulation, treatment recommendations, and patient suicidal ideation. Suicide and Life‐Threatening Behavior, 52(2), 329-340. https://doi.org/10.1111/sltb.12824
*Bloch-Elkouby, S., & Barzilay, S. (2022). Alliance-focused safety planning and suicide risk management. Psychotherapy, 59(2), 157-162. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000416
Bloch-Elkouby, S., Yanez, N., Chennapragada, L., Richards, J., Cohen, L., & Galynker, I. (2022). The Narrative-Crisis Model of Suicide: a Novel and Empirically-Validated Diathesis-Stress Model of Suicide. In: Pompili, M. (eds) Suicide Risk Assessment and Prevention. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41319-4_14-1
Cohen, L. J., Mokhtar, R., Richards, J., Hernandez, M., Bloch‐Elkouby, S., & Galynker, I. (2022). The narrative‐crisis model of suicide and its prediction of near‐term suicide risk. Suicide and Life‐Threatening Behavior, 52(2), 231-243. https://doi.org/10.1111/sltb.12816
Rogers, M. L., Bloch-Elkouby, S., & Galynker, I. (2022). Differential disclosure of suicidal intent to clinicians versus researchers: Associations with concurrent suicide crisis syndrome and prospective suicidal ideation and attempts. Psychiatry research, 312, 114522. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2022.114522
Urmanche, A. A., Lipner, L. M., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Hunter, E., Kaufmann, J., Warren, J. T., Weil, G., Eubanks, C. & Muran, J. C. (2021). The beginning of the end: a comparison of treatment completers and early dropouts in trainee-provided time-limited cognitive behavioral therapy. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515070.2021.1997916
2021
Bloch-Elkouby, S., Barzilay, S., Gorman, B. S., Lawrence, O. C., Rogers, M. L., Richards, J., Cohen, L., Johnson, B. & Galynker, I. (2021). The revised suicide crisis inventory (SCI-2): Validation and assessment of prospective suicidal outcomes at one month follow-up. Journal of affective disorders, 295, 1280-1291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2021.08.048
Gomes de Siqueira, A., Yao, H., Bafna, A., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Richards, J., Lloveras, L. B., Feeney, K., Morris, S., Musser, E., Lok, B. & Galynker, I. (2021, December). Investigating the Effects of Virtual Patients’ Nonsensical Responses on Users’ Facial Expressions in Mental Health Training Scenarios. In Proceedings of the 27th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (pp. 1-10). https://doi.org/10.1145/3489849.3489864
McMullen, L., Parghi, N., Rogers, M. L., Yao, H., Bloch-Elkouby, S., & Galynker, I. (2021). The role of suicide ideation in assessing near-term suicide risk: A machine learning approach. Psychiatry research, 304, 114-118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2021.114118
Rogers, M. L., Vespa, A., Bloch‐Elkouby, S., & Galynker, I. (2021). Validity of the modular assessment of risk for imminent suicide in predicting short‐term suicidality. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 144(6), 563-577. https://doi.org/10.1111/sltb.12824
2020
Barzilay, S., Assounga, K., Veras, J., Beaubian, C., Bloch-Elkouby, S., & Galynker, I. (2020). Assessment of near-term risk for suicide attempts using the Suicide Crisis Inventory. Journal of affective disorders, 276, 183-190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.06.053
Barzilay, S., Schuck A., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Yaseen, S., Hawes, M., Rosenfield, P., Foster, A., & Galynker, I. (2019) Associations between Clinicians’ Emotional Responses, Therapeutic Alliance and Patient Suicidal Ideation. Depression and anxiety, 37(3), 214-223. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22973
Bloch-Elkouby, S., Gorman, B., Lloveras, L., Wilkerson. T., Schuck, A., Barzilay, S., Calati, R., Schnur, D., & Galynker, I. (2020). How do distal and proximal risk factors combine to predict suicidal ideation and behaviors? A prospective study of the narrative crisis model of suicide. Journal of Affective Disorders, 277, 914-926. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.08.088
Bloch-Elkouby, S., Gorman, Schuck, A., Barzilay, S., Calati, R., Begum, F., Levy, D., Galynker, I. (2020). The Suicide Crisis Syndrome: A network analysis. Journal of counseling psychology, 67(5), 595. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000423
Calati, R., Cohen, L. J., Schuck, A., Jeon, M., Levy, D., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Barzilay, S., Rosenfield, P. J., & Galynker, I. (2020). The modular assessment of risk for imminent suicide (MARIS): A validation study of a novel tool for suicide risk assessment. Journal of affective disorders, 263, 121-128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.12.001
Zilcha-Mano, S., Eubanks, C. F., Bloch-Elkouby, S., & Muran, J. C. (2020) Can we agree we just had a rupture? Patient-therapist congruence on ruptures and its effects on outcome in brief relational therapy vs. cognitive behavioral therapy. Journal of counseling psychology, 67 (3), 315. https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000400
2019
Bloch-Elkouby, S., Eubanks, C. F., Knopf, L., Gorman, B. S., & Muran, J. C. (2019). The difficult task of assessing and interpreting treatment deterioration: an evidence-based case study. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1180. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01180
Schuck, A., Calati, R., Barzilay, S., Bloch‐Elkouby, S., & Galynker, I. (2019). Suicide Crisis Syndrome: A review of supporting evidence for a new suicide‐specific diagnosis. Behavioral sciences & the law, 37(3), 223-239. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2397
Yaseen, Z., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Barzilay, S., & Galynker, I. (2019). Teaching emotional awareness and what to do with it in patient encounters. In Z. Yaseen & A. Foster (Eds.) Teaching Empathy in Healthcare - Building a Core Competency. (pp. 99-116). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29876-0_6
2017
Bloch-Elkouby, S., Knopf, L., Gold, J., Muran, J.C. (2017). Assimilative psychodynamic psychotherapy: A critical case study reconsideration. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 27, 254–264. https://doi.org/10.1037/int0000062
Chui, A., Bloch-Elkouby, S., & Barber, J. (2017). Benefits and Challenges: A Closer Look at Case Studies within Trials. In Fishman, D.B., Messer, S.B., Edwards, D.J.A., & Dattilio, F.M. (Eds.). Case studies within psychotherapy trials: Expanding the gold standard. New York: Oxford University Press.
*indicates joint first authorship.
**indicates students' first or co-authorship
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Concepts in Psychotherapy
Clinical Interviewing 1st and 2nd semester