Exposure to descriptions of traumatic events narrows one's concept of trauma.

The concept of "trauma" was originally used by psychiatrists to describe horrific events such as rape and torture that characteristically provoke extreme emotional distress. Both colloquially and clinically, the concept of psychological trauma has broadened considerably. Although many clinical scientists have expressed concern about the broadening of the concept of trauma, it remains unclear how this concept expansion occurs.

Which symptoms of depression and anxiety are most strongly associated with happiness? A network analysis of Indian and Kenyan adolescents.

Background: Network analyses have been applied to understand the relationships between individual symptoms of depression and anxiety. However, little is known about which symptoms are most strongly associated with "positive" indicators of mental health, such as happiness. Furthermore, few studies have examined symptom networks in participants from low- and middle-income countries.

An Answer to "So What?" Implications of Network Theory for Research and Practice.

Research and practice in psychiatry and clinical psychology have been guided by differing schools of thought over the years. Recently, the network theory of psychopathology has arisen as a framework for thinking about mental health. Network theory challenges three common assumptions: psychological problems are caused by disease entities that exist independently of their signs and symptoms, classification and diagnosis of psychological problems should follow a medical model, and psychological problems are caused by diseases or aberrations in the brain.

Clarifying Relations Between ADHD and Functional Impairment in Adulthood: Utilization of Network and Machine Learning Approaches.

Using network analysis and random forest regression, this study identified attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms most important for indicating impairment in various functional domains. Participants comprised a nationally representative sample of 1249 adults in the United States. Bridge symptoms were identified as those demonstrating unique relations with impairment domains that, in total, were stronger than those involving other symptoms.

What's in a trauma? Using machine learning to unpack what makes an event traumatic.

What differentiates a trauma from an event that is merely upsetting? Wildly different definitions of trauma have been used in both formal (psychiatric) and informal (cultural, colloquial) settings. Yet there is a dearth of empirical work examining the features of events that individuals use to define an event as a 'trauma.' First, a group of qualitative coders classified features (e.

Does broadening one's concept of trauma undermine resilience?

The term "trauma" seems to have expanded from a narrow usage (referring exclusively to extreme events such as rape and warfare) to a broad usage (encompassing almost any event that results in emotional distress). Today, individuals vary widely in the extent to which their personal "trauma concept" is relatively narrow or broad. In this study, we explore whether this variation is important to individuals' actual experience when facing a stressful event.

A Network Analysis of DSM-5 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms and Event Centrality.

The centrality of a traumatic event to one's autobiographical memory has been associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity. In the present study, we investigated the associations between specific features of event centrality (EC), as measured using the Centrality of Event Scale, and specific symptoms of PTSD. We computed a cross-sectional graphical lasso network of PTSD symptoms and specific features of EC in a sample of trauma-exposed individuals (n = 451), many of whom met the clinical threshold for a PTSD diagnosis.

Posttraumatic stress or posttraumatic growth? Using network analysis to explore the relationships between coping styles and trauma outcomes.

Trauma can produce posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but may also foster positive outcomes, such as posttraumatic growth. Individual differences in coping styles may contribute to both positive and negative sequelae of trauma. Using network analytic methods, we investigated the structure of PTSD symptoms, elements of growth, and coping styles in bereaved survivors of a major earthquake in China.

Network Trees: A Method for Recursively Partitioning Covariance Structures.

In many areas of psychology, correlation-based network approaches (i.e., psychometric networks) have become a popular tool.

Mood symptoms and impairment due to substance use: A network perspective on comorbidity.

Background: Mood disorders and problematic substance use co-occur and confer reciprocal risk for each other. Few studies use analytic approaches appropriate for testing whether specific features of one disorder confer risk for the other.

Methods: 445 participants (59.

Sexual Orientation Complexity and Psychosocial/Health Outcomes.

Individuals whose sexual attraction or behavior varies from others' expectations based on their sexual identity were initially described as exhibiting sexual orientation discordance. This conceptualization has been challenged as inaccurate and value-laden, and "branchedness" has been suggested as a value-neutral description. Using a United States national sample of 4,530 participants from the 2013-2014 Center for Collegiate Mental Health database, we challenge the empirical distinctness of the phenomenon of sexual orientation discordance by 1) replicating previous work that indicates that branched individuals evidence unique psychosocial and health outcomes relative to non-branched individuals and 2) using stepwise regression to demonstrate that these differences in outcomes can be accounted for by variation in sexual attraction, behavior, and identity and that "discordance" between indicators failed to explain additional variation in outcomes.

Sampling Variability Is Not Nonreplication: A Bayesian Reanalysis of Forbes, Wright, Markon, and Krueger.

Forbes, Wright, Markon, and Krueger claim that psychopathology network characteristics have "limited" or "poor" replicability, supporting their argument primarily with data from two waves of an observational study on depression and anxiety. They developed "direct metrics" to gauge change across networks (e.g.

Age-related differences in borderline personality disorder symptom networks in a transdiagnostic sample.

Background: Naturalistic longitudinal studies of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) indicate that symptoms improve over time. In the present study, we applied network theory to the question of how BPD symptom networks may differ as a function of age.

Methods: In a transdiagnostic sample of 5,212 patients presenting for acute psychiatric treatment, we administered a measure of BPD symptoms and then used a novel machine learning technique to test the hypothesis that symptom networks would significantly differ across the age of participants.

Network Structure of Physical, Cognitive, and Emotional Symptoms at Preseason Baseline in Student Athletes with Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder.

Objective: Preexisting attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may be a risk factor for worse outcome following sport-related concussion. We used a statistical and psychometric approach known as network analysis to examine the architecture of physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms at preseason baseline among student athletes with ADHD.

Method: A cohort of 44,527 adolescent student athletes completed baseline preseason testing with ImPACT® between 2009 and 2015.

Trigger warnings and resilience in college students: A preregistered replication and extension.

Trigger warnings notify people that content they are about to engage with may result in adverse emotional consequences. An experiment by Bellet, Jones, and McNally (2018) indicated that trigger warnings increased the extent to which trauma-naïve crowd-sourced participants see themselves and others as emotionally vulnerable to potential future traumas but did not have a significant main effect on anxiety responses to distressing literature passages. However, they did increase anxiety responses for participants who strongly believed that words can harm.

Architecture of Physical, Cognitive, and Emotional Symptoms at Preseason Baseline in Adolescent Student Athletes With a History of Mental Health Problems.

Pre-injury mental health problems are associated with greater symptom reporting following sport-related concussion. We applied a statistical and psychometric approach known as network analysis to examine the interrelationships among symptoms at baseline in adolescent student athletes with a history of mental health problems. Cross-sectional study.

Towards a precision psychiatry approach to anxiety disorders with ecological momentary assessment: the example of panic disorder.

Background: Treatments for anxiety disorders are among the most effective in psychiatry. Yet, there is considerable room for improvement.

Aim: In this paper, we discuss the value of ecological momentary assessment as a research method and clinical tool.

Applying network analysis to understand depression and substance use in Indian adolescents.

Introduction: Network analysis has been used to better understand relationships between depressive symptoms. Existing work has rarely examined networks of adolescents or individuals in non-western countries.

Methods: We used data from 13,035 adolescents (52.

Obsessive-compulsive symptoms in eating disorders: A network investigation.

Objective: Eating disorders (EDs) are complex, heterogeneous, and severe psychiatric syndromes. They are highly comorbid with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) which exacerbates the course of illness and impedes treatment. However, the direct functional relations between EDs and OCD symptoms remain largely unexplored.

Bridge Centrality: A Network Approach to Understanding Comorbidity.

Recently, researchers in clinical psychology have endeavored to create network models of the relationships between symptoms, both within and across mental disorders. Symptoms that connect two mental disorders are called "bridge symptoms." Unfortunately, no formal quantitative methods for identifying these bridge symptoms exist.

Visualizing Psychological Networks: A Tutorial in R.

Networks have emerged as a popular method for studying mental disorders. Psychopathology networks consist of aspects (e.g.

Core psychopathology of treatment-seeking patients with binge-eating disorder: a network analysis investigation.

Background: Mental disorders may emerge as the result of interactions between observable symptoms. Such interactions can be analyzed using network analysis. Several recent studies have used network analysis to examine eating disorders, indicating a core role of overvaluation of weight and shape.