Exploring Temporal Relationships Between Anxiety, Mood and Mental Imagery in Patients With Bipolar Disorder: A Network Analysis.

Introduction: Bipolar disorder is a severe mental health problem with limited treatment success. There is a call for improving interventions, requiring an increased understanding of factors driving mood instability. One promising avenue is to study temporal associations between factors that appear relevant according to the emotional amplifier model of Holmes are changes in mood, anxiety and mental imagery.

Imagery rescripting: The value of an added positive emotion component.

Background And Objectives: Imagery Rescripting (ImRs) aims to reduce trauma-related negative emotions and intrusions. Positive emotions during ImRs may aid coping with the consequences of trauma, but protocols vary in the extent to which they explicitly target such positive emotions. We used a multiple-day design with a trauma film paradigm to investigate whether adding an explicit positive emotion component to ImRs improved intervention effects in a non-clinical sample.

Targeting negative flashforward imagery in speech anxiety with a visuospatial dual-task: Do attenuated flashforwards lead to less anxiety and avoidance?

Background And Objectives: It has been proposed that negative mental imagery plays an important role in the persistence of social fears. Experiencing vivid and distressing 'flashforward' images of a potential social catastrophe appears to be of relevance in speech anxiety. To clarify the role of these images, the current experimental study tested if reducing the vividness and distressing properties of recurring negative flashforward images subsequently reduces anxiety and avoidance tendencies regarding a speech.

Exploring aspects of self-reported emotional mental imagery in patients with bipolar disorder.

Background And Objectives: CBT for patients with bipolar disorder has modest effects. Across disorders, mental imagery has been used to update CBT to increase effectiveness. In order to enhance CBT for bipolar disorder with imagery techniques, research is needed into emotional imagery quality and, related appraisals of imagery and their relationships with mood instability and subsequent behaviour in bipolar disorder.

Should cognitive restructuring precede imagery rescripting? An experimental pilot study.

Background And Objectives: Imagery rescripting (ImRs) is a promising therapeutic technique used in treatment for a variety of psychiatric disorders. During an ImRs session, an aversive disorder-related memory, is activated in imagination and rescripted to a more positive outcome. It has been shown to successfully weaken the negative cognitive meaning, so-called encapsulated beliefs of the targeted aversive memory.

Flashforward imagery in speech anxiety: Characteristics and associations with anxiety and avoidance.

Speech anxiety (SA) is a highly prevalent social fear. Prospective 'flashforward' (FF) imagery of an upcoming social catastrophe may be a particularly important cognitive factor in SA persistence via eliciting anxiety and avoidance behaviors. Since earlier research on imagery and social anxiety has not strictly differentiated between types of negative imagery, the occurrence, precise features, and impact of FF imagery remain unclear.

Comparing the effectiveness of imagery focussed cognitive therapy to group psychoeducation for patients with bipolar disorder: A randomised trial.

Background: Bipolar disorder is a severe, chronic mental disorder. Treatment options are limited, with pharmacological approaches continuing to dominate. However, relapse rates remain high.

Empathy Modulates the Effects of Acute Stress on Anxious Appearance and Social Behavior in Social Anxiety Disorder.

Patients suffering from social anxiety disorder (SAD) fear social interaction and evaluation, which severely undermines their everyday life. There is evidence of increased prosocial behavior after acute social stress exposure in healthy individuals, which may be interpreted as stress-regulating " behavior. In a randomized controlled trial, we measured empathic abilities in a first diagnostic session.

The effect of intranasally administered oxytocin on observed social behavior in social anxiety disorder.

Research has shown that patients with a social anxiety disorder (SAD) show social performance deficits. These deficits are a maintaining factor in SAD, as mending social behavior improves interpersonal judgments and reduces social anxiety. Thus finding ways to enhance social behavior is evidently of importance in the treatment of SAD.

The efficacy of incorporating mental imagery in cognitive restructuring techniques on reducing hostility: A randomized controlled trial.

Background And Objectives: Cognitive restructuring (CR) is an effective intervention for hostility. However, the number of patients who fail to benefit suggest that the efficacy of CR can be further improved. The present study investigated whether enhancing CR with mental imagery techniques can increase its efficacy.

Interpretation bias modification for hostility: A randomized clinical trial.

Hostility is a transdiagnostic phenomenon that can have a profound negative impact on interpersonal functioning and psychopathological severity. Evidence suggests that cognitive bias modification for interpretation bias (CBM-I) potentially reduces hostility. However, stringent efficacy studies in people with clinical levels of hostility are currently lacking.

Uncovering the hierarchical structure of self-reported hostility.

Hostility and other related terms like anger and aggression are often used interchangeably to describe antagonistic affect, cognition, and behavior. Psychometric studies suggest that hostility consists of multiple separate factors, but consensus is currently lacking. In the present study we examined the hierarchical structure of hostility.

Image qualities and mood variability: Evaluating the utility of an imagery survey for bipolar disorder.

Objective: Imagery appears to play an important role in mood variability, a core symptom of patients suffering from bipolar disorder. The present study aimed to explore the validity and reliability of an online self-report measure of imagery, the Dutch Imagery Survey (DImS). The DImS is an adaptation of the Imagery interview used in research on imagery in mental disorders.

Turning negative memories around: Contingency versus devaluation techniques.

Background And Objectives: It is assumed that fear responses can be altered by changing the contingency between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US), or by devaluing the present mental representation of the US. The aim of the present study was to compare the efficacy of contingency- and devaluation-based intervention techniques on the diminishment in - and return of fear. We hypothesized that extinction (EXT, contingency-based) would outperform devaluation-based techniques regarding contingency measures, but that devaluation-based techniques would be most effective in reducing the mental representation of the US.

Responses to dominance challenge are a function of psychopathy level: A multimethod study.

This study assesses the relationship between psychopathy and dominance, both as a trait level and in 2 interpersonal contexts. Following the interpersonal circumplex model, we expected that interacting with a dominant interviewer would reduce dominance displays by low psychopathy participants (interpersonal complementarity) but might increase such displays in those with higher psychopathy (anticomplementarity). Psychopathic traits and dominance were assessed in a community sample (N = 91) using multiple dominance indicators: self-reported overall dominance level, job preference, dominance displays observed during identical interviews with a subordinate and dominant interviewer, and baseline and postinterview measures of personal space and testosterone level.

Imagery rescripting and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing for treatment of adults with childhood trauma-related post-traumatic stress disorder: IREM study design.

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that originates from childhood trauma experiences can develop into a chronic condition that has lasting effects on an individual's functioning and quality of life. While there are evidence-based guidelines for treating adult onset PTSD, treatments for adults with childhood trauma-related PTSD (Ch-PTSD) are varied and subject to ongoing debate. This study will test the effectiveness of two trauma-focused treatments, imagery rescripting (ImRs) and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) in participants with Ch-PTSD.

Through rose-coloured glasses: An empirical test of narcissistic overestimation.

Background: Grandiosity is designated as a hallmark trait of narcissism. The current study tested whether narcissistic traits are related to overestimation of a range of agentic performances.

Method: Eighty-five non-patients executed six objective tasks to assess their level of (emotional) intelligence, first impression, attractiveness, social skills and learning performance.

The SPAI-18, a brief version of the social phobia and anxiety inventory: reliability and validity in clinically referred and non-referred samples.

We developed a new version of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI) in order to have a brief instrument for measuring social anxiety and social anxiety disorder (SAD) with a strong conceptual foundation. In the construction phase, a set of items representing 5 core aspects of social anxiety was selected by a panel of social anxiety experts. The selected item pool was validated using factor analysis, reliability analysis, and diagnostic analysis in a sample of healthy participants (N = 188) and a sample of clinically referred participants diagnosed with SAD (N = 98).

The effect of a retrieval cue on the return of spider fear.

Background And Objectives: Exposure therapy is often used as treatment for anxiety disorders. However, a change in context after exposure can result in fear renewal. This renewal can be attenuated by using retrieval cues stemming from the exposure context.

Socially Anxious Individuals Get a Second Chance After Being Disliked at First Sight: The Role of Self-Disclosure in the Development of Likeability in Sequential Social Contact.

Socially anxious individuals (SAs) not only fear social rejection, accumulating studies show that SAs are indeed judged as less likeable after social interaction with others. This study investigates if SAs already make a more negative impression on others in the very first seconds of contact. The study further investigates the development of likeability and the role of self-disclosure herein in two sequential social interactions: first after an unstructured waiting room situation and next after a 'getting acquainted' conversation.

Anticipation of Social Interaction Changes Implicit Approach-Avoidance Behavior of Socially Anxious Individuals.

Earlier research has revealed implicit avoidance of social stimuli in social anxiety (SA). This study investigated such reactions in anticipation of social interaction. High (n = 24) and low (n = 22) SA females were assessed in anticipation of a getting-acquainted conversation (anticipation) and in a no-conversation-expected (neutral) condition.

Not self-focused attention but negative beliefs affect poor social performance in social anxiety: an investigation of pathways in the social anxiety-social rejection relationship.

Patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) not only fear negative evaluation but are indeed less likeable than people without SAD. Previous research shows social performance to mediate this social anxiety-social rejection relationship. This study studied two pathways hypothesized to lead to poor social performance in social anxiety: increased self-focused attention and negative beliefs.