The effectiveness of unguided self-help psychological interventions for obsessive-compulsive disorder: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Background: Evidence-based psychological interventions exist for individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but many individuals with OCD are unable to access them because of barriers, such as geographical isolation, treatment cost, and stigma etc. Unguided self-help psychological intervention has emerged as a potential solution to this problem. However, there is limited research on its overall effectiveness.

Automated app-based augmented reality cognitive behavioral therapy for spider phobia: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Fear of spiders, or Arachnophobia, is one of the most common specific phobias. The gold standard treatment, in vivo exposure therapy, is effective, but comes with significant limitations, including restricted availability, high costs, and high refusal rates. Novel technologies, such as augmented reality, may help to overcome these limitations and make Exposure Therapy more accessible by using mobile devices.

Virtual Reality Self-help Treatment for Aviophobia: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Aviophobia (the fear of flying) can greatly impact the daily life functioning of people with the condition. Traditional exposure-based treatment is hampered by the limited availability of airplane practice situations, which is a result of economical and practical concerns. Easily accessible and low-cost virtual reality exposure therapy may address these challenges.

Patients With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Check Excessively in Response to Mild Uncertainty.

Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) not only respond to obsessions with perseverative checking, but also engage in more general checking, irrespective of their obsessive concerns. This study investigated whether general checking is specific to OCD and exacerbated when only mild uncertainty is induced. Thirty-one patients with OCD, 26 anxiety- and 31 healthy controls performed a visual search task with eye-tracking and indicated in 50 search displays whether a target was "present" or "absent".

Perseveration induces dissociative uncertainty in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Background And Objectives: Obsessive compulsive (OC)-like perseveration paradoxically increases feelings of uncertainty. We studied whether the underlying mechanism between perseveration and uncertainty is a reduced accessibility of meaning ('semantic satiation').

Methods: OCD patients (n = 24) and matched non-clinical controls (n = 24) repeated words 2 (non-perseveration) or 20 times (perseveration).

Check, check, double check: Investigating memory deterioration within multiple sessions of repeated checking.

Background And Objectives: Extensive research has shown that repeated checking causes memory distrust. Therefore, it has been suggested that people may subsequently get into a vicious cycle of decreased memory confidence and increased checking behavior, which may play a role in the maintenance and development of OCD. This study investigated in two experiments how repeated checking influences memory distrust over multiple checking episodes.

Safety Behavior Increases Obsession-Related Cognitions About the Severity of Threat.

This study investigated whether checking behavior, the most common safety behavior in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), contributes to the development of OCD symptoms. Ninety healthy undergraduates spent a week between a pre- and posttest either actively engaging in clinically representative checking behavior on a daily basis (experimental group, n=30), monitoring their normal checking behavior (monitor group, n=30), or received no instructions on checking behavior (control group, n=30). Cognitions about the severity of threat increased from pre- to posttest in the experimental group, but not in the monitor and control groups.

Proust revisited: odours as triggers of aversive memories.

According to the Proust phenomenon, olfactory memory triggers are more evocative than other-modality triggers resulting in more emotional and detailed memories. An experimental paradigm was used to investigate this in aversive memories, similar to those experienced by patients with posttraumatic stress disorder. Seventy healthy participants watched an aversive film, while simultaneously being exposed to olfactory, auditory and visual triggers, which were matched on intensity, valence, arousal and salience.

Exposure plus response prevention versus exposure plus safety behaviours in reducing feelings of contamination, fear, danger and disgust. An extended replication of Rachman, Shafran, Radomsky & Zysk (2011).

Background And Objectives: Safety behaviours are widely held to impede the beneficial effects of exposure, certainly in OCD. Recently, Rachman, Radomsky, Shafran, and Zysk (2011) challenged this view. Healthy volunteers repeatedly touched a contaminant in two sessions.

EMDR: eye movements superior to beeps in taxing working memory and reducing vividness of recollections.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is effectively treated with eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) with patients making eye movements during recall of traumatic memories. Many therapists have replaced eye movements with bilateral beeps, but there are no data on the effects of beeps. Experimental studies suggest that eye movements may be beneficial because they tax working memory, especially the central executive component, but the presence/degree of taxation has not been assessed directly.