Enhancing Insight in Patients With Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Case Study on Avatar Therapy Using Virtual Reality.

Treatment efficacy for patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with poor insight is low. Insight refers to a patient's ability to recognize that their obsessions are irrational and that their compulsions are futile attempts to reduce anxiety. This case study presents the first application of virtual reality-assisted avatar therapy for OCD (VRT-OCD) in a patient with contamination OCD and ambivalent insight.

Too much of a good thing? Hand hygiene and the long-term course of contamination-related obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

Increased hygiene behavior may be a factor in the development of contamination-related obsessive-compulsive symptoms (C-OCS). We aimed at investigating (1) the course of C-OCS over 1 year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) the effects of changes in hand hygiene (i.e.

Mixed results for exposure and response prevention therapy in mixed reality for patients with contamination-related obsessive-compulsive disorder: A randomized controlled pilot study.

Introduction: Technology-supported exposure and response prevention (ERP) for patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as tested in clinical research, holds promise but also has limitations. The present study aims to overcome these limitations by using mixed reality for ERP (MERP). The objectives of this pilot study were to evaluate the safety, feasibility, and acceptance of MERP and to identify possible obstacles.

How to assess and analyse session-specific effects and predictors: An example with the Metacognitive Training for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder intervention.

It is essential to understand the effects of specific therapy elements (i.e., mechanisms of change) to optimize the efficacy of available treatments.

Exploring mechanisms of change in the metacognitive training for depression.

The Metacognitive Training for Depression (D-MCT) is a highly structured group therapy that has been shown to be effective in reducing depressive symptoms. First evidence suggests that need for control represents a mechanism of change. However, more research is needed to evaluate the mode of action of each module and identify predictors of treatment response.

Can you trust this source? Advice taking in borderline personality disorder.

Research suggests that patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) share a range of cognitive biases with patients with psychosis. As the disorder often manifests in dysfunctional social interactions, we assumed associated reasoning styles would be exaggerated in a social setting. For the present study, we applied the Judge-Advisor System by asking participants to provide initial estimates of a person's age and presumed hostility based on a portrait photo.

Efficacy of metacognitive training for depression as add-on intervention for patients with depression in acute intensive psychiatric inpatient care: A randomized controlled trial.

Background: Metacognitive training for depression (D-MCT) is a novel low-intensity group training for economic treatment of depression. Previous studies demonstrate its efficacy in moderately depressed outpatients. The present study evaluated efficacy and patients' perspective of the D-MCT in severely depressed psychiatric inpatients.

Unrealistic pessimism and obsessive-compulsive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic: Two longitudinal studies.

Objective: Unrealistic pessimism (UP) is an aspect of overestimation of threat (OET) that has been associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder/symptoms (OCD/OCS). During the COVID-19 pandemic, UP may have played an important role in the course of OCD. To investigate the relationship, we conducted two longitudinal studies assuming that higher UP predicts an increase in OCS.

Factors contributing to social cognition impairment in borderline personality disorder and schizophrenia.

Social cognition (SC) deficits have been described both in patients with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, while the former tend towards simplistic mental state attributions (undermentalizing), the latter are more likely to make overly complex mental state inferences (overmentalizing). Performance on complex SC tasks has been shown to correlate with neurocognitive ability, emotion perception, a history of trauma, and overconfidence in errors.