Cara Luisa Wicher, M.Sc.
Graduate Student (currently on internship)
Email: wicher@uni-wuppertal.de
Tel.: 0202-439 5509
Room: RG3.03.025
I study social and emotional risk and protective factors of self-harm (i.e., non-suicidal self-injury; suicidal thoughts and behaviors) in childhood and adolescence (e.g., loneliness, connectedness with peers, emotion regulation). Because encouraging individuals to “reach out” and disclose self-harming thoughts or behaviors to those around them is key to suicide prevention, I am particularly interested to better understand circumstances under which youth feel safe to share intentions of self-harm and what may help them overcome suicidal crises in everyday life (e.g., reasons for living). To reliably investigate these rare but potentially consequential phenomena, I use intensive longitudinal data to capture relevant processes and their fluctuations via Ecological Momentary Assessment in youths’ everyday lives.
Academic background
| from 10/2024 | Psychological psychotherapist in training, Psychotherapeutic Practice, Wuppertal |
| 01/2024 – 08/2024 | Clinical Internship, Psychotherapeutic Practice, Wuppertal |
| since 01/2024 | Graduate Student at the University of Wuppertal, Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and Psychotherapy |
| 01/2023 – 12/2023 | Clinical Internship, Clinic for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychosomatic Medicine and Neurology, Evangelical Foundation Tannenhof, Remscheid |
| since 01/2023 | Clinical Training (Cognitive Behavioral Psychotherapy), APP Cologne |
| 12/2022 – 12/2023 | Research Assistant, Chair of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and Psychotherapy (Prof. Dr. Aleksandra Kaurin), University of Wuppertal |
| somce 12/2022 | Doctoral Studies, School for Human and Social Sciences, University of Wuppertal |
| 2021 – 2022 | Research Assistant, Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany (Jun.-Prof. Dr. Aleksandra Kaurin) |
| 2019 – 2022 | Student Clinician, Pediatric Outpatient Psychiatry Service, Klinik Walstedde, Drensteinfurt, Germany |
| 2021 – 2022 | Master of Science in Clinical Psychology, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany |
| 2017 – 2021 | Bachelor of Science Psychology, University of Cologne, Germany |
Publications
Teismann, T., Kaurin, A., Wicher, C.L., Friedrich, S. (2024). Risk assessment: suicidality and external endangerment. In T. Teismann, P. Thoma, S. Taubner, Wannemüller & K. Von Sydow. Clinical psychology and psychotherapy: A cross-procedural teaching and learning book (pp. 187-198). Hogrefe.
Wicher, C. L., Kaurin, A., Dombrovski, A., Hallquist, M., Buecker, S., & Wright, A. G. C. (accepted). Daily Loneliness and Suicidal Ideation in Borderline Personality Disorder. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment.
Preregstration protocol: https://osf.io/u5nak/
Recent preregistrations
Wicher, C. L., Buecker, S., Philippi, P., & Kaurin, A. (2025, March 12). Daily Manifestations of Maladaptive Personality Traits and Loneliness across Social Contexts in Youth. https://osf.io/xptuv
Kaurin, A., Krakau, L., Philippi, P., Wicher, C. L., Shiner, R. (2024, August 30). Adolescents' Pathological Personality Traits and Interpersonal Processes in Daily Life. https://osf.io/9bvr5
Congress contributions
Wicher, C. L., Matz, H., Baumert, A., Halabi, S., Demirgünes, E., Kaurin, A. (2025). Daily reasons for living in youth suicide prevention. Society for Ambulatory Assessment Conference (SAA), Leuven, Belgium.
Wicher, C. L., Buecker, S., Philippi, P., Kaurin, A. (2025). Loneliness in the everyday life of adolescents: The role of maladaptive personality traits [Lecture]. 4th German Psychotherapy Congress (DPK), Berlin, Germany.
Wicher, C.L., In-Albon, T., Teismann, T., Friedrich, S., Kaurin, A. (2024). Suicide prevention in childhood and adolescence: On the everyday assessment of "Reasons for Living" [Poster]. 20th European Symposium on Suicide and Suicidal Behaviour (ESSSB20), Rome, Italy.
Wicher, C.L., Kaurin, A., Friedrich, S., In-Albon, T., Teismann, T. (2024). Suicide prevention in childhood and adolescence: On the (everyday) assessment of “Reasons for Living”. [Lecture]. 3rd German Psychotherapy Congress (DPK), Berlin, Germany.
Wicher, C.L., Kaurin, A., Friedrich, S., In-Albon, T., Teismann, T. (2022). Disclosure of suicidal thoughts and intentions by children and adolescents in psychotherapy. [Lecture]. 1st German Psychotherapy Congress (DPK), Berlin, Germany.
Wicher, C.L., Kaurin, A., Friedrich, S., In-Albon, T., Teismann, T. (2022). Disclosure of suicidal thoughts and intentions by children and adolescents in psychotherapy. [Lecture]. German Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychiatry (DGKJP) Congress, Magdeburg, Germany.
Last modified: 05.06.2025
