Treating anxiety comorbidity: Lessons from exposure generalization studies.

Comorbidity is a characteristic hallmark of anxiety disorders. Presence of comorbid anxiety and depression is challenging to the diagnosis and treatment. Conventional and transdiagnostic treatment options for anxiety disorders strongly depend on the use of exposure.

Natural language processing reveals differences in mental time travel at higher levels of self-efficacy.

The (re-)construction of past and future personal experiences, termed mental time travel (MTT), is highly adaptive and contributes to self-related beliefs and attitudes. Mounting evidence suggests that self-efficacy (SE), the belief that one can overcome obstacles on their own account, is functionally related to MTT. In the present study, we used novel methods for the analysis of MTT narratives based on natural language processing (NLP) to investigate the relation between SE and MTT.

Reduced speech coherence in psychosis-related social media forum posts.

The extraction of linguistic markers from social media posts, which are indicative of the onset and course of mental disorders, offers great potential for mental healthcare. In the present study, we extracted over one million posts from the popular social media platform Reddit to analyze speech coherence, which reflects formal thought disorder and is a characteristic feature of schizophrenia and associated psychotic disorders. Natural language processing (NLP) models were used to perform an automated quantification of speech coherence.

Generalization of beneficial exposure effects to untreated stimuli from another fear category.

Previous research has shown that fear associated with one stimulus often spreads to other stimuli with similar perceptual features as well as across different stimulus categories. Exposure is considered as the most effective intervention to attenuate exaggerated fear. The extent to which exposure treatment effects can generalize to fears not targeted during treatment remains elusive.

The role of self-efficacy in specific fears.

Low self-efficacy for threatening stimuli and situations has been proposed as an important etiological factor in the development and maintenance of specific phobias. The present study examined the relationships between general self-efficacy (GSE), specific self-efficacy (SSE) and specific fears in a representative sample (n = 717). While GSE was associated with higher self-reported fear and avoidance, SSE (e.