Move, connect and go outside! A randomized controlled trial of two online interventions and analysis of helpful coping strategies in COVID-19 "homestayers".

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a global health crisis and a significant increase in psychological distress and psychopathological symptoms. We conducted a randomized controlled trial with two online interventions derived from positive psychology (PP) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) in N = 138 "homestayers" during the first lock-down period in Germany. PP exercises had a positive impact on anxiety scores, which decreased significantly during the intervention, particularly in participants without access to a garden.

The best of both worlds? General principles of psychopathology in personalized assessment.

A complex systems approach to psychopathology proposes that general principles lie in the dynamic patterns of psychopathology, which are not restricted to specific psychological processes like symptoms or affect. Hence, it must be possible to find general change profiles in time series data of fully personalized questionnaires. In the current study, we examined general change profiles in personalized self-ratings and related these to four measures of treatment outcome (International Symptom Rating, 21-item Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale, daily symptom severity, and self-reflective capacity).

Pathologically reduced neural flexibility recovers during psychotherapy of OCD patients.

Flexibility is a key feature of psychological health, allowing the individual to dynamically adapt to changing environmental demands, which is impaired in many psychiatric disorders like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Adequately responding to varying demands requires the brain to switch between different patterns of neural activity, which are represented by different brain network configurations (functional connectivity patterns). Here, we operationalize neural flexibility as the dissimilarity between consecutive connectivity matrices of brain regions (jump length).

Multi-level assessment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) reveals relations between neural and neurochemical levels.

Background: While considerable progress has been made in exploring the psychological, the neural, and the neurochemical dimensions of OCD separately, their interplay is still an open question, especially their changes during psychotherapy.

Methods: Seventeen patients were assessed at these three levels by psychological questionnaires, fMRI, and venipuncture before and after inpatient psychotherapy. Seventeen controls were scanned at comparable time intervals.

Long-Term Effects of Home-Based Family Therapy for Non-responding Adolescents With Psychiatric Disorders. A 3-Year Follow-Up.

Objective: Home-based treatment of families with low socio-economic status and multiple psychosocial problems (multi-problem families, MPFs) is gaining importance in clinical social epidemiology and health services research. The sustainability of the treatment is of special importance in order to breach transgenerational effects.

Methods: We examined outcome, effect size, and clinical significance of home-based treatment for 84 multi-problem families in a naturalistic setting.

Promotion of mental health in young adults via mobile phone app: study protocol of the ECoWeB (emotional competence for well-being in Young adults) cohort multiple randomised trials.

Background: Promoting well-being and preventing poor mental health in young people is a major global priority. Building emotional competence (EC) skills via a mobile app may be an effective, scalable and acceptable way to do this. However, few large-scale controlled trials have examined the efficacy of mobile apps in promoting mental health in young people; none have tailored the app to individual profiles.

Sudden gains in day-to-day change: Revealing nonlinear patterns of individual improvement in depression.

Objective: We examined individual overall trajectories of change and the occurrence of sudden gains in daily self-rated problem severity and the relation of these patterns to treatment response.

Method: Mood disorder patients ( = 329, mean age = 44, 55% women) completed daily self-ratings about the severity of their complaints as a standard part of treatment, using the Therapy Process Questionnaire (TPQ). Per individual, the best-fitting defined (linear, log-linear, 1-step) trajectory was tested for significance: for change over time, and for specificity of the best-fitting trajectory.

Destabilization in self-ratings of the psychotherapeutic process is associated with better treatment outcome in patients with mood disorders.

While destabilization periods characterized by high variability and turbulence in a patient's psychological state might seem obstructive for psychotherapy, a complex systems approach to psychopathology predicts that these periods are actually beneficial as they indicate possibilities for reorganization within the patient. The present study tested the hypothesis that destabilization is related to better treatment outcome. 328 patients who received psychotherapy for mood disorders completed daily self-ratings about their psychotherapeutic process.

Erroneously Disgusted: fMRI Study Supports Disgust-Related Neural Reuse in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

: fMRI scans of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) consistently show a hyperactivity of the insular cortex, a region responsible for disgust-processing, when confronted with symptom-triggering stimuli. This asks for an investigation of the role of disgust and the insula in OCD patients. : Seventeen inpatients with OCD and 17 healthy controls (HC) underwent fMRI scanning.

Individual OCD-provoking stimuli activate disorder-related and self-related neuronal networks in fMRI.

For patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), whose triggers are highly idiosyncratic, individual stimulus material has been used in several fMRI studies. This study aims at comparing individual to standardized picture sets and at investigating a possible overlap of the former with the self-referential neuronal network. During fMRI-scanning, 17 inpatients with OCD and 17 healthy controls were exposed to pictures of their personal triggers, photographed in their domestic environments, to standardized pictures designed to provoke OCD symptoms, and to neutral pictures.

The Effect of Childhood Adversities and Protective Factors on the Development of Child-Psychiatric Disorders and Their Treatment.

Families with high rates of childhood adversities (CAs) (multi problem families, MPF) have an increasing importance in public health-policy. The present study addresses the relationship between risk- and protective factors and the severity and treatment-outcome of mental disorders. Family-therapeutic home-based treatment for MPF.

Patterns of Change in Collaboration Are Associated with Baseline Characteristics and Predict Outcome and Dropout Rates in Treatment of Multi-Problem Families. A Validation Study.

The present study validates the Multi-Problem Family (MPF)-Collaboration Scale), which measures the progress of goal directed collaboration of patients in the treatment of families with MPF and its relation to drop-out rates and treatment outcome. Naturalistic study of symptom and competence-related changes in children of ages 4-18 and their caregivers. Integrative, structural outreach family therapy.

Systemic Case Formulation, Individualized Process Monitoring, and State Dynamics in a Case of Dissociative Identity Disorder.

The aim of this case report is to demonstrate the feasibility of a systemic procedure (synergetic process management) including modeling of the idiographic psychological system and continuous high-frequency monitoring of change dynamics in a case of dissociative identity disorder. The psychotherapy was realized in a day treatment center with a female client diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and dissociative identity disorder. A three hour long co-creative session at the beginning of the treatment period allowed for modeling the systemic network of the client's dynamics of cognitions, emotions, and behavior.

The Mathematics of Psychotherapy: A Nonlinear Model of Change Dynamics.

Psychotherapy is a dynamic process produced by a complex system of interacting variables. Even though there are qualitative models of such systems the link between structure and function, between network and network dynamics is still missing. The aim of this study is to realize these links.

Real-Time Monitoring of Psychotherapeutic Processes: Concept and Compliance.

Objective: The feasibility of a high-frequency real-time monitoring approach to psychotherapy is outlined and tested for patients' compliance to evaluate its integration to everyday practice. Criteria concern the ecological momentary assessment, the assessment of therapy-related cognitions and emotions, equidistant time sampling, real-time nonlinear time series analysis, continuous participative process control by client and therapist, and the application of idiographic (person-specific) surveys.

Methods: The process-outcome monitoring is technically realized by an internet-based device for data collection and data analysis, the Synergetic Navigation System.

Synchronization Analysis of Language and Physiology in Human Dyads.

We studied the synchronization dynamics of a therapist and patient during a psychotherapy session. This investigation was developed in order to explore a new possible perspective and methodology for studying the expression of emotions. More specifically, literature concerning synchronization of in-session non-verbal variables emphasises its positive correlation with empathy and therapeutic outcomes.

Increasing the sludge energy potential of wastewater treatment plants by introducing fine mesh sieves for primary treatment.

The objective of this study was to compare some basic characteristics of sludge from fine mesh sieves (sieve sludge) with sludge from primary clarifiers (primary sludge) regarding their energy potential with a focus on anaerobic digestion and/or incineration. Nineteen samples of sludge from fine mesh sieve plants (most of them without fine screens and grit chambers as pre-treatment) and 10 samples of primary sludge were analysed for the content of dry solids (DS), volatile solids (VS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), calorific value and methane potential. The results demonstrated that the sieve sludges have significantly higher VS content and higher methane potential than primary sludges, clearly indicating an increased sludge energy potential if fine mesh sieves are used for primary treatment instead of primary clarifiers at wastewater treatment plants with anaerobic digesters.