Research

Leonhard Schilbach is a professor of psychiatry at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and head of the Department for General Psychiatry 2 at the LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf.

His conceptual and scientific work has lead to what has been described as an ‚interactive turn‘ in social neuroscience, i.e. a focus on the dynamics of social interaction, their role in understanding other minds and the underlying neural mechanisms. Schilbach also works on eyetracking and optical imaging to quantify interpersonal behavior in freely forming, dyadic encounters to investigate the behavioral mechanisms of social interactions.

His scientific contributions are motivated by his work as a clinical psychiatrist and psychotherapist, which is based on the assumption that psychiatric disorders can be construed as disorders of social interaction. Here, Schilbach employs interaction-based measurements to advance the study of social impairments associated with mental ill health in order to improve diagnostic procedures and develop transdiagnostic treatment approaches.

Leonhard Schilbach has received several awards in recognition of the importance of his scientific work for psychiatry.