Shelley McMain, PhD

Shelley McMain, PhD, is Head of the Borderline Personality Disorder Clinic and a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Canada. She also serves as Director of the Psychotherapy, Humanities, and Psychosocial Interventions (PHPI) Division and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto. In addition, she is a founder and co-Director of the Centre for MindBody Health, a private psychotherapy clinic in Toronto, Canada.

Dr. McMain is a leading expert in the treatment of personality disorders. Her research focuses on clinical trials and the translation of evidence-based treatments into clinical practice. She also investigates the psychological and biological correlates of personality pathology and treatment response, as well as the mechanisms and mediators that explain how therapy brings about change. Her clinical and research interests include psychotherapy process and outcomes, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), borderline personality disorder (BPD), and transdiagnostic factors such as the therapeutic alliance and emotion regulation.

She has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals across psychiatry and related disciplines, including Nature Genetics, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, The American Journal of Psychiatry, and BMC Psychiatry. She has written 11 book chapters and co-authored 4 books.

Dr. McMain has secured more than $13 million in research funding as a Principal and/or co-Investigator from agencies such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Ontario Mental Health Foundation. Her contributions to research and clinical innovation have been recognized through numerous international awards from organizations including the European Society for the Study of Personality Disorders, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the International Society for the Improvement and Teaching of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and the Personality Disorders Institute at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College.

Dr. McMain has received multiple teaching awards from the University of Toronto, including the 2021 Excellence in Teaching Award for the DBT Certificate Course, the 2021 Ivan Silver Award for Excellence in Continuing Professional and Practice Development, the 2010 Colin Woolf Award for Excellence in Course Coordination, and the 2009 Ivan Silver Award for Excellence in CME Teaching.

She has held numerous professional leadership roles, including the first President of the World Dialectical Behavior Therapy Association (WDBTA), Transitional Board and the President of the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). She currently serves as Past President of the WDBTA.