Adjuvant psychotherapy in early-stage bipolar disorder: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Bipolar disorders are serious illnesses with a chronic course and a high rate of relapse. Typically, bipolar disorders onset during adolescence or early adulthood, with patients experiencing significant personal and social costs as a consequence of their illness. Despite this, to date, there is limited (controlled) evidence regarding the effectiveness of psychotherapy during the critical stages of the disorder (e.

Facial emotion recognition, theory of mind and the role of facial mimicry in depression.

Background: This study examined whether acutely (aMDD) and remitted depressed patients (rMDD) show deficits in the two aspects of social cognition - facial emotion recognition (FER) and reasoning - when using ecologically valid material. Furthermore, we examined whether reduced facial mimicry mediates the association between depressive symptoms and FER, and whether FER deficits and reasoning deficits are associated.

Method: In 42 aMDD, 43 rMDD, and 39 healthy controls (HC) FER was assessed using stimuli from the Amsterdam Dynamic Facial Expression Set, reasoning by the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition.

Cognitive emotion regulation in euthymic bipolar disorder.

Background: Based on findings indicating increased stress reactivity and prolonged stress recovery in individuals with bipolar disorder (BD), it has been proposed that emotion regulation (ER) deficits lie at the core of this disorder. Recent studies show an increased use of maladaptive ER strategies and a decreased use of adaptive ER strategies in BD. Whether this pattern is merely a correlate of affective episodes or might be a stable characteristic of BD, however, remains to be explored.