My playbook: Psychotherapy role expectations, relational trauma, and trauma-spectrum mental dysfunctions in community mental health service users in Hong Kong.

Objective: Clients with relational trauma often face challenges in forming a therapeutic alliance, a primary predictor of psychotherapy outcomes. Unresolved traumatic stress can lead to a passive stance in therapy, manifested as a tendency to seek advice and approval from therapists in order to establish more predictable relational dynamics. This comes at the cost of adequately addressing their own therapeutic needs, which often leads to stagnation, treatment dropout, and frustration with the therapist.

Child Dissociation: The Descriptive Psychopathology Analysis of a Case.

With a reliable retrospective link to early-life traumatic stress, dissociation has been formulated as a pathology of abnormal socioemotional development. Dissociation hence should be identifiable and diagnosable in childhood. This study aimed to address the extent to which current formulation and diagnostic criteria of adult dissociation is applicable to children.

Remember walking in their shoes? The relation of self-referential source memory and emotion recognition.

Deficits in the ability to read the emotions of others have been demonstrated in mental disorders, such as dissociation and schizophrenia, which involve a distorted sense of self. This study examined whether weakened self-referential source memory, being unable to remember whether a piece of information has been processed with reference to oneself, is linked to ineffective emotion recognition. In two samples from a college and community, we quantified the participants' ability to remember the self-generated versus non-self-generated origins of sentences they had previously read or partially generated.

Linking childhood trauma and dissociation to psychotic symptoms in major depressive disorder, bipolar disorders, and schizophrenia: A transdiagnostic examination using patient and clinician ratings.

Objective: Symptomatic overlap between dissociation and psychosis is well documented; however, the pathogenesis of these two phenomena might be distinct. Few studies have analyzed the relation of dissociative and psychotic symptoms transdiagnostically. The current study examines an emerging trauma-dissociation theoretical model that accounts for psychotic symptoms across affective disorders and schizophrenia (SCZ).

18-month trajectories of delusional dimensions in young adults: Relationship with reasoning biases and worry.

Background: It has been argued that what differentiates delusional ideation from full-blown delusions (indicating need for care) is not the number of beliefs, but the experiential dimensions such as conviction, distress, and preoccupation. However, how these dimensions evolve over time and affect outcomes is under-researched. While delusional conviction and distress are associated with reasoning biases and worry respectively in clinical samples, how these processes predict trajectories of delusional dimensions in the general population remains unclear.

Erroneous Thought in Inpatients with Major Depressive Disorder: The Role of Psychological Trauma During Childhood and Adulthood.

Background: The pathogenic role of trauma in psychotic-like experiences has yet to be clarified. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of childhood and adulthood trauma on erroneous thoughts among patients with major depressive disorder.

Materials And Methods: Inpatients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and healthy controls (HCs) were enrolled, and paper-and-pencil questionnaires were applied.

Stressors and Destressors in Working From Home Based on Context and Physiology From Self-Reports and Smartwatch Measurements: International Observational Study Trial.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly boosted working from home as a way of working, which is likely to continue for most companies in the future, either in fully remote or in hybrid form. To manage stress levels in employees working from home, insights into the stressors and destressors in a home office first need to be studied.

Objective: We present an international remote study with employees working from home by making use of state-of-the-art technology (ie, smartwatches and questionnaires through smartphones) first to determine stressors and destressors in people working from home and second to identify smartwatch measurements that could represent these stressors and destressors.

The co-occurrence of multidimensional loneliness with depression, social anxiety and paranoia in non-clinical young adults: A latent profile analysis.

Introduction: Loneliness is a negative experience arising from a mismatch between perceived and actual social relationships. Several dimensions of loneliness have been suggested, namely intimate, relational and collective loneliness. Loneliness has been linked to poorer mental health, with its co-occurrence with depression, social anxiety, and paranoia most widely reported.

Finding a positive me: Affective and neural insights into the challenges of positive autobiographical memory reliving in borderline personality disorder.

Background: This study aimed to investigate whether people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) can benefit from reliving positive autobiographical memories in terms of mood and state self-esteem and elucidate the neural processes supporting optimal memory reliving. Particularly the role of vividness and brain areas involved in autonoetic consciousness were studied, as key factors involved in improving mood and state self-esteem by positive memory reliving.

Methods: Women with BPD (N = 25), Healthy Controls (HC, N = 33) and controls with Low Self-Esteem (LSE, N = 22) relived four neutral and four positive autobiographical memories in an MRI scanner.

A network analysis on the relationship between loneliness and schizotypy.

Background: Schizotypy is a multidimensional personality trait related to the heightened risk for the development of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. While it has been suggested that loneliness may be associated with schizotypy in general, whether it relates to the specific schizotypal traits differentially remains unknown. Besides, as loneliness often co-occurs with depression and anxiety, it is important to delineate its relationship with schizotypy in consideration of these co-occurring emotional disturbances.

Dissociation and Dissociative Disorders Reconsidered: Beyond Sociocognitive and Trauma Models Toward a Transtheoretical Framework.

For more than 30 years, the posttraumatic model (PTM) and the sociocognitive model (SCM) of dissociation have vied for attention and empirical support. We contend that neither perspective provides a satisfactory account and that dissociation and dissociative disorders (e.g.

The moderation of maternal parenting on the association of trauma, dissociation, and psychosis in depressive inpatients.

Background: The effect of dissociation and parenting style on the relationship between psychological trauma and psychotic symptoms has not previously been investigated.

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop a moderated mediation model to assess whether the association between psychological trauma and psychotic symptoms is mediated by dissociation and moderated by parental maltreatment.

Methods: Inpatients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar depression (BP) were recruited.

Longitudinal bifactor modeling of anxiety, depression and schizotypy - The role of rumination as a shared mechanism.

A bifactor model with a general (p) factor reflecting shared variance and specific factors reflecting additional variance in individual symptoms has been introduced to explain common co-occurrence among anxiety, depression and schizotypy. However, longitudinal evidence is lacking and the validity of bifactor modeling is debatable. The current study aimed to examine the presence of the p factor together with specific factors in accounting for relationships between anxiety, depression and schizotypy both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, and to investigate the relationship between these factors and rumination.

Dissociation of posture remapping and cognitive load in level-2 perspective-taking.

Visuospatial perspective-taking is the foundation for inferring the mental state of another person during social interaction. Although research has shown that dual processes are involved in self-judgment when an avatar is present on screen, it is unknown whether dual independent processes also underlie perspective-taking. During the three experiments in the present study, the participants made laterality judgments according to the perspective of a seated or standing avatar.

Visuospatial perspective shifting and relational self-association in dispositional shame and guilt.

Although dispositional shame and guilt have been distinguished by perceptions of the self and behavioral responses, the underlying information processing patterns remain unclear. We hypothesized that an ability to contemplate alternatives to perceptions of the current environment, i.e.

Absence of negative associations of insular and medial frontal gray matter volume with dissociative symptoms in schizophrenia.

Background: Dissociative symptoms have been constantly found in schizophrenia (SCZ). Traumatic experience seems to relate to dissociative symptoms and brain volume alterations in SCZ. The current study aimed to clarify the inter-relations of dissociative symptoms, traumatic experience, and brain volume in SCZ.

Altered cortico-striatal functional connectivity in people with high levels of schizotypy: A longitudinal resting-state study.

Purpose Of The Research: Cortico-striatal functional connectivity has been implicated in the neuropathology of schizophrenia. However, the longitudinal relationship between the cortico-striatal connectivity and schizotypy remains unknown. We examined the resting-state fMRI connectivity in 27 individuals with a high level of schizotypy and 20 individuals with a low level of schizotypy at baseline and 18 months later.

Relational self-evaluations in dissociation: Implicit self-rejection?

Objective: Schematic self-knowledge consists of internal representations that shape perceptions of how the self is related to one's surroundings and other people. These representations may include dysfunctional implicit self-evaluations, such as associations of the self with negative attributes like shame, in trauma-spectrum disorders. The current study examines whether a negative relational self-association, that is, linking the self with rejection, characterizes dissociation.

A pilot study on the effectiveness of low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (LiCBT) for common mental disorders in Hong Kong.

Background: To cope with the rising demand for psychological treatment, evidence-based low-intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (LiCBT) delivered by trained para-professionals was introduced internationally.

Aims: This pilot study aimed at examining the effectiveness of LiCBT in Hong Kong.

Method: This study was of an uncontrolled pre- and post-treatment design, testing LiCBT at a local community mental health centre in Hong Kong.

Risk perception in paranoia and anxiety: Two investigations across clinical and non-clinical populations.

Objectives: It is common, among clinical and non-clinical populations alike, for paranoia and anxiety to co-occur. It has been suggested that anxiety and its related appraisal styles may contribute to development of paranoia. We aimed to evaluate different aspects of risk perception in relation to paranoia and anxiety and to identify specific aspects that may differentiate paranoia from anxiety.

Worry and metacognitions as predictors of the development of anxiety and paranoia.

Recent studies have shown that worry and related negative metacognitions are characteristic in generalized anxiety and paranoia respectively. However, most of these studies did not take into account common co-occurrence of anxiety and paranoia, and longitudinal modelling of the role of worry and metacognitions on the development of anxiety and paranoia is rare. The current study aimed at examining the bidirectional longitudinal relationship between anxiety and paranoia, as well as the importance of worry and metacognitions in the development of these symptoms.

Network analysis of schizotypal personality traits and their association with other subclinical psychiatric features.

Schizotypal personality (SP) traits have been found to be correlated with autistic traits, obsessive-compulsive traits, depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms. However, the overall pattern of the relationship remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the network structure between SP traits and other subclinical features (symptoms or traits) and test the replicability of these relationships.

When I relive a positive me: Vivid autobiographical memories facilitate autonoetic brain activation and enhance mood.

Autobiographical memory is vital for our well-being and therefore used in therapeutic interventions. However, not much is known about the (neural) processes by which reliving memories can have beneficial effects. This study investigates what brain activation patterns and memory characteristics facilitate the effectiveness of reliving positive autobiographical memories for mood and sense of self.