A Scale for Measuring Positive and Negative Experiences of Psychotherapy (PNEP): First Psychometric Findings of a New Instrument for Monitoring Clients' Experiences.

Background: Clients' adverse experiences during psychotherapy are rarely monitored in clinical practice or research trials. One obstacle here is the lack of a measure to gauge both positive and negative experiences during psychotherapy. We developed and evaluated a new instrument for measuring such experiences.

[Social security disability assessments: validity tests are useful].

Social security disability assessors are required to objectively quantify disability with regards to potential ability to work. Difficulties arise when assessments need to be performed in the absence of objective medical data relying solely on self-report regarding subjective health complaints. In such cases, validity tests provide a useful tool during an assessment.

Repressed Memories (of Sexual Abuse Against Minors) and Statutes of Limitations in Europe: Status Quo and Possible Alternatives.

One of the most heated debates in psychological science concerns the concept of repressed memory. We discuss how the debate on repressed memories continues to surface in legal settings, sometimes even to suggest avenues of legal reform. In the past years, several European countries have extended or abolished the statute of limitations for the prosecution of sexual crimes.

The prevalence of feigning and concealment of Covid-19 infections in an international sample.

We asked 463 participants from 21 countries whether they had feigned and/or concealed having a coronavirus infection during the pandemic period. 384 respondents (83%) reported having experienced a coronavirus infection. They were, on average, younger and reported more chronic health issues than participants who said they had never been infected.

Can false denials turn fact into fiction? The effect of false denials on memory for self-performed actions.

We examined the mnemonic effects of falsely denying a self-performed action. Specifically, participants (N = 30) performed, imagined, or received no instruction about 24 action statements (e.g.

Experts' Failure to Consider the Negative Predictive Power of Symptom Validity Tests.

Feigning (i.e., grossly exaggerating or fabricating) symptoms distorts diagnostic evaluations.

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.

Cry for help as a root cause of poor symptom validity: A critical note.

When patients fail symptom validity tests (SVTs) and/or performance validity tests (PVTs), their self-reported symptoms and test profiles are unreliable and cannot be taken for granted. There are many well-established causes of poor symptom validity and malingering is only of them. Some authors have proposed that a cry for help may underlie poor symptom validity.

No self-serving bias in therapists' evaluations of clients' premature treatment termination: An approximate replication of Murdock et al. (2010).

In an often-cited study, Murdock et al. (2010) found that therapists are more likely to attribute premature treatment termination to client characteristics than to themselves, a finding that the authors interpreted in terms of a self-serving bias (SSB). We replicated and extended the study of Murdock et al.

Memory and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy: a potentially risky combination in the courtroom.

Does Eye Movement and Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy affect the accuracy of memories? This recurrent issue in recent memory research bears relevance to expert witness work in the courtroom. In this review, we will argue that several crucial aspects of EMDR may be detrimental to memory. First, research has shown that eye movements undermine the quality and quantity of memory.

The link between dissociative tendencies and hyperassociativity.

Background And Objectives: Anecdotal and research evidence suggests that individuals with dissociative symptoms exhibit hyperassociativity, which might explain several key features of their condition. The aim of our study was to investigate the link between dissociative tendencies and hyperassociativity among college students.

Methods: The study (n = 118) entailed various measures of hyperassociativity, measures of dissociative tendencies, depressive experiences, unusual sleep experiences, cognitive failures, and alexithymia.

Consistency does not aid detection of feigned symptoms, overreporting does: Two explorative studies on symptom stability among truth tellers and feigners.

Practitioners always want to exclude the possibility that a patient is feigning symptoms. Some experts have suggested that an inconsistent symptom presentation across time (i.e.

Belief in Unconscious Repressed Memory Persists.

On the basis of converging research, we concluded that the controversial topic of unconscious blockage of psychological trauma (i.e., repressed memory) remains very much alive in clinical, legal, and academic contexts.

Self-Reported Voluntary Blame-Taking: Kinship Before Friendship and No Effect of Incentives.

Inspired by theories of prosocial behavior, we tested the effect of relationship status and incentives on intended voluntary blame-taking in two experiments (Experiment 2 was pre-registered). Participants ( = 211 and = 232) imagined a close family member, a close friend, or an acquaintance and read a scenario that described this person committing a minor traffic offense. The person offered either a monetary, social, or no incentive for taking the blame.

Skirting the issue: What does believing in repression mean?

We show that, in contrast to Brewin, Li, Ntarantana, Unsowrth, and McNeilis (2019), large proportions of laypersons believe in the scientifically controversial phenomenon of unconscious repressed memories. We provide new survey data showing that when participants are asked specific questions about what they mean when they report that traumatic memories can be repressed, most provide answers strongly consistent with unconscious repression. Our findings continue to show that researchers, legal professionals, and clinicians should be wary of invoking unconscious repression in their work.

Belief in unconscious repressed memory is widespread: A comment on Brewin, Li, Ntarantana, Unsworth, and McNeilis (2019).

What does believing in repressed memory mean? In a recent article in this journal, Brewin, Li, Ntarantana, Unsworth, and McNeilis (2019, Study 3) argued that when people are asked to indicate their belief in repressed memory, they might actually think of deliberate memory suppression rather than unconscious repressed memory. They further argued that in contrast to belief in unconscious repressed memory, belief in deliberate memory suppression is not scientifically controversial. In this commentary, we show that they are incorrect on both counts.

Associations between supernormality ('faking good'), narcissism and depression: An exploratory study in a clinical sample.

We explored underreporting of mental health symptoms and its correlates in adults receiving psychological treatment. We administered the Supernormality Scale (SS), the Minnesota Multiple Personality Inventory-2 (Restructured Form, MMPI-2-RF), the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-2) to 147 patients at the start of their treatment. Supernormality (i.

[Psychopathological significance of fantasy proneness as measured by the Creative Experiences Questionnaire: a meta-analysis].

Fantasy proneness has been linked to dissociative symptoms and adverse childhood experiences.
AIM: To review and meta-analyze the empirical literature on fantasy proneness (as indexed by the Creative Experiences Questionnaire) that appeared between 2000 and 2018.
METHOD: We searched Google Scholar to identify relevant papers and subjected them to inspection.

Overlooking Feigning Behavior May Result in Potential Harmful Treatment Interventions: Two Case Reports of Undetected Malingering.

Clinicians tend to overestimate their ability to recognize feigning behavior in psychiatric patients, especially if it concerns patients who have been admitted for observation. Feigning can be either externally motivated (e.g.

Increases of correct memories and spontaneous false memories due to eye movements when memories are retrieved after a time delay.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. However, literature on possible adverse memory effects of EMDR is scarce. Using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false memory paradigm, we examined the susceptibility to spontaneous false memories after performing eye movements, as used in EMDR.

The Return of the Repressed: The Persistent and Problematic Claims of Long-Forgotten Trauma.

Can purely psychological trauma lead to a complete blockage of autobiographical memories? This long-standing question about the existence of repressed memories has been at the heart of one of the most heated debates in modern psychology. These so-called memory wars originated in the 1990s, and many scholars have assumed that they are over. We demonstrate that this assumption is incorrect and that the controversial issue of repressed memories is alive and well and may even be on the rise.

Dissociation and its disorders: Competing models, future directions, and a way forward.

Dissociative experiences and symptoms have sparked intense scrutiny and debate for more than a century. Two perspectives, the trauma model (TM), which postulates a direct and potent causal link between trauma and dissociation, and the sociocognitive model (SCM), which emphasizes social and cognitive variables (e.g.

Detecting feigned high impact experiences: A symptom over-report questionnaire outperforms the emotional Stroop task.

Background And Objectives: The Modified Stroop Task (MST) effect refers to a prolonged reaction time (RT) in color-naming words related to an individual's disorder. Some authors argue that its absence in people who claim symptoms might be an indication of feigning.

Method: We tested whether the MST effect is robust against feigning attempts and compared its absence as an index of feigning with over-reporting tendencies on a symptom questionnaire (i.

The Self-Report Symptom Inventory (SRSI) is sensitive to instructed feigning, but not to genuine psychopathology in male forensic inpatients: An initial study.

The (SRSI) is a new symptom validity test that, unlike other symptom over-reporting measures, contains both genuine symptom and pseudosymptom scales. We tested whether its pseudosymptom scale is sensitive to genuine psychopathology and evaluated its discriminant validity in an instructed feigning experiment that relied on carefully selected forensic inpatients ( = 40). We administered the SRSI twice: we instructed patients to respond honestly to the SRSI (T1) and then to exaggerate their symptoms in a convincing way (T2).

Who Is the Better Eyewitness? Sometimes Adults but at Other Times Children.

Suggestibility is regarded as a major issue when children testify in court. Many legal professionals and memory researchers view children as inferior witnesses. Although differences in suggestibility exist between children and adults, they are much more complex than is usually assumed.