Psychosis and help-seeking behaviour-A systematic review of the literature.

Purpose: Many people with psychosis do not seek help which delays access to recommended treatments. Duration of untreated psychosis is associated with poor healthcare outcomes and increased risk of relapse. The reasons why people delay accessing treatment remain unclear.

Secure attachment imagery facilitates help-seeking and help-acceptance in psychosis.

Objectives: People with psychosis delay accessing recommended treatments, resulting in poor healthcare outcomes and increased risk of relapse. Means of improving help-seeking and help-acceptance could reduce duration of untreated psychosis (DUP). This study examined the role of attachment style in help-seeking and help-acceptance in psychosis.

Insecure attachment and support-seeking during COVID-19: a sequential mixed methods investigation.

The COVID-19 pandemic led many couples to stay at home together with minimal contact with others. As social distancing measures reduced contact with outside households, many partners could seek support only from one another. In two studies using a sequential mixed methods design, we investigated support-seeking behaviors in romantic relationships during COVID-19.

Toward a causal link between attachment styles and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Recent research has shown that insecure attachment, especially attachment anxiety, is associated with poor mental health outcomes, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Other research suggests that insecure attachment may be linked to nonadherence to social distancing behaviours during the pandemic.

Aims: The present study aims to examine the causal links between attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant), mental health outcomes (depression, anxiety, loneliness) and adherence to social distancing behaviours during the first several months of the UK lockdown (between April and August 2020).

Insecure Attachment Orientation in Adults and Children and Negative Attribution Bias: A Meta-Analysis.

This is the first meta-analysis to synthesize the literature on insecure attachment and negative attribution bias (NAB) from both developmental and social/personality attachment traditions. This meta-analysis is important because extant studies report inconsistent associations, making it difficult to draw conclusions about the nature of these associations. Based on 41 samples ( = 8,727) from 32 articles, we specify and compare the effect sizes of these associations across studies.

Do emotion regulation strategies mediate the attachment-paranoia association? An experimental study of repeated attachment imagery priming and stress buffering.

Objectives: Paranoia describes unfounded interpersonal threat beliefs. Secure attachment imagery attenuates paranoia, but limited research examines mechanisms of change and no studies examine how secure imagery may be implemented most effectively in clinical practice. In this study, we tested: (a) the causal impact of secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment imagery on paranoia and anxiety, (b) whether emotion regulation strategies mediate these relationships, and (c) whether secure imagery buffers against social stress.

How does insecure attachment lead to paranoia? A systematic critical review of cognitive, affective, and behavioural mechanisms.

Background: The relationship between attachment and paranoia is now well established. There is good theoretical reason and evidence to indicate that attachment style affects cognitive, affective, and behavioural processes which, in turn, contribute to the maintenance of paranoia, but this research has not been integrated. We critically and systematically review research that examines relevant cognitive, affective, and behavioural processes, which may explain how attachment insecurity leads to paranoia and constitute key targets in psychotherapeutic interventions for people with psychosis.

Successful negotiation of goal conflict between romantic partners predicts better goal outcomes during COVID-19: A mixed methods study.

When romantic partners' personal goals conflict, this can negatively affect personal goal outcomes, such as progress. In a concurrent mixed methods study, we investigated whether goal conflict and negation of goal conflict were associated with goal outcomes (progress, confidence, motivation) and what strategies partners used during the COVID-19 pandemic to negotiate goal conflict. Survey participants ( = 200) completed a daily diary for a week and weekly longitudinal reports for a month and interview participants ( = 48) attended a semi-structured interview.

Adapting to change: How has COVID-19 affected people's work and personal goals?

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on the global economy and affected millions of people's work and personal lives across the world. The purpose of the present study was to better understand how individuals' work and personal goals have been affected by the pandemic and how they have adapted to these changes. We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews (n = 48) and surveyed participants (n = 200) weekly for 5 weeks.

The Impact of Repeated Attachment Priming on Paranoia, Mood and Help-Seeking Intentions in an Analogue Sample.

Attachment security priming effects therapeutic change in people with depression and anxiety. Preliminary studies indicate that visualising secure attachment memories also reduces paranoia in non-clinical and clinical groups, probably due to a decrease in cognitive fusion. Benefits to clinical populations depend on the sustainability of these effects and the impact on help-seeking behaviours.

Attachment anxiety predicts worse mental health outcomes during COVID-19: Evidence from two studies.

COVID-19 has resulted in a mental health crisis across the globe. Understanding factors that may have increased individuals' risk of poor mental health outcomes is imperative. Individual differences in attachment styles have been shown to predict poorer mental health outcomes and insecure individuals struggle to cope with stressful situations.

How does attachment imagery for paranoia work? Cognitive fusion and beliefs about self and others mediate the impact on paranoia and anxiety.

Objectives: Paranoia describes unfounded and distressing interpersonal threat beliefs. Secure attachment imagery has been shown to attenuate paranoia and anxiety in non-clinical and clinical groups, but little is known about the differential effects of anxious and avoidant imagery or mechanisms of change. In this study, we tested the impact of secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment imagery on paranoia, anxiety, and help-seeking intentions.

Partner support and goal outcomes during COVID-19: A mixed methods study.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been stuck indoors with their partners for months. Having a supportive partner is likely to be especially important during this time when access to outside sources of support is limited. The present mixed-methods study aimed to investigate how partner support is associated with goal outcomes during COVID-19.

The effect of attachment security priming and oxytocin on physiological responses to trauma films and subsequent intrusions.

To further understand protective mechanisms to prevent post-traumatic stress disorder or assist recovery from psychological trauma, this study investigated whether pharmacological and psychological activation of a secure attachment representation elicits higher felt-security and a related response pattern of reduced physiological arousal and increased parasympathetic activation; and whether it protects individuals from developing intrusions and experiencing distress in the week following exposure to a trauma film. Using a double-blind, experimental mixed factorial design, 101 volunteers received either oxytocin or placebo and either secure attachment or neutral priming before watching a trauma film. We measured felt security as an indicator of the strength of activation of a secure attachment representation, skin conductance and heart rate as indicators of physiological arousal, and high frequency heart rate variability as an indicator of parasympathetic activation during the priming and the film.

Attachment styles, negotiation of goal conflict, and perceived partner support during COVID-19.

Due to the pandemic, people have been stuck indoors with their partners for months. Instead of being able to rely on multiple sources of support, many couples have to rely on each other more. We investigated whether goal conflict, successful negotiation of the conflict, and individual differences in attachment styles were associated with perceived partner support to understand factors that may enable or hinder goal pursuit during the pandemic.

The Effectiveness of Attachment Security Priming in Improving Positive Affect and Reducing Negative Affect: A Systematic Review.

Attachment security priming has been extensively used in relationship research to explore the contents of mental models of attachment and examine the benefits derived from enhancing security. This systematic review explores the effectiveness of attachment security priming in improving positive affect and reducing negative affect in adults and children. The review searched four electronic databases for peer-reviewed journal articles.

Priming attachment security improves attitudes towards a range of therapies.

We sought to understand how attachment orientation influenced attitudes towards different types of psychological therapies. In two studies, we (1) examined attachment orientation as a predictor of attitudes towards different therapies and (2) tested whether attachment security priming could improve attitudes. Study 1 (n = 339) found associations between attachment orientation and attitudes towards, and likelihood of using different therapies.

Attachment and prejudice.

There is a paucity of research that examines prejudice from an attachment theory perspective. Herein we make theoretical links between attachment patterns and levels of prejudice. Perceptions of outgroup threat, which activate the attachment system, are thought to lead to fear and prejudice for those high in attachment anxiety, and to distancing and prejudice for those high in attachment avoidance.

Effects of repeated attachment security priming in outpatients with primary depressive disorders.

Background: The aim of this study was to assess the potential effectiveness of secure attachment priming in outpatients with depressive disorders.

Methods: Forty-eight participants engaged in secure attachment priming or neutral priming in the laboratory (Time 1), after which they received three daily consecutive primes via text message (Times 2-4), aimed at maintaining the effects from Time 1. A follow-up one day later (Time 5) was also included.

Attachment Security and Self-compassion Priming Increase the Likelihood that First-time Engagers in Mindfulness Meditation Will Continue with Mindfulness Training.

Mindfulness practice has many mental and physical health benefits but can be perceived as 'difficult' by some individuals. This perception can discourage compliance with mindfulness meditation training programs. The present research examined whether the activation of thoughts and feelings related to attachment security and self-compassion (through semantic priming) prior to a mindfulness meditation session might influence willingness to engage in future mindfulness training.

Attachment and prejudice: The mediating role of empathy.

In two studies, we examined the novel hypothesis that empathy is a mechanism through which the relationship between attachment patterns and prejudice can be explained. Study 1 examined primed attachment security (vs. neutral prime), empathy, and prejudice towards immigrants.

Core belief content examined in a large sample of patients using online cognitive behaviour therapy.

Background: Computerised cognitive behavioural therapy provides a unique opportunity to collect and analyse data regarding the idiosyncratic content of people's core beliefs about the self, others and the world.

Methods: 'Beating the Blues' users recorded a core belief derived through the downward arrow technique. Core beliefs from 1813 mental health patients were coded into 10 categories.

The associations between adult attachment, posttraumatic symptoms, and posttraumatic growth.

Background And Objectives: Individual differences after trauma vary considerably and can range from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to posttraumatic growth (PTG). Current theoretical models cannot fully explain this variability. Therefore, we integrated attachment theory with Ehlers and Clark's model of PTSD to understand whether attachment style is associated with negative appraisals of a traumatic event(s), posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS), and PTG.

Texting "boosts" felt security.

Attachment security can be induced in laboratory settings (e.g., Rowe & Carnelley, 2003) and the beneficial effects of repeated security priming can last for a number of days (e.

Self-reported discrimination and discriminatory behaviour: the role of attachment security.

Past research shows that attachment security is linked to low prejudice (Hofstra, Van Oudenhoven & Bunnk, 2005; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2001). We extend this research by examining the role of attachment security in discriminatory choices and discriminatory behaviour. The current study examines the influence of primed attachment security (vs.