2018

Do painful or negative thoughts get in your way? Try holding them lightly. There is widespread consensus in modern cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) that thought processes play a large role in mental health. For example, we know that people who experience more negative thoughts about themselves and their lives are …

How important is client motivation in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)? As many practitioners know, delivering CBT to clients who are not quite ready to change can be a challenge. For example, client completion of homework between sessions is an important component of CBT, and when …

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is the most common inflammatory dermatological disorder and is marked by itch and inflamed skin. For many patients, AD leads to substantial suffering, reduced quality of life, and an increased risk for depression and anxiety. Psychological treatments have been studied to a limited extent, despite that the …

The purpose of the present study was to examine anxiety sensitivity, attentional bias to threat (ABT), and the aggregate influence of these constructs as prospective predictors of anxiety. Participants (N = 176) completed a baseline assessment session which included the completion of self-report measures of anxiety and anxiety sensitivity, as well as …

Cognitive-behavioural models have been applied with great success to numerous forms of psychopathology including mood disorders (David, Kangas, Schnur, & Montgomery, 2004), anxiety- and stress-related disorders (Clark & Beck, 2011), and psychotic-based disorders (Birchwood et al., 2014). A robust, and commonly identified, correlate of all of these forms of psychopathology …

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive treatment for borderline personality disorder and, in its standard form, involves individual therapy, group skills training, consultation team for therapists, and phone coaching. Phone coaching is designed to help clients generalize the skills they are learning in treatment to the rest of their …

There is growing research demonstrating that mobile apps can be used to improve mental health and help address many common psychological disorders (e.g., Firth et al., 2017; Torous, Levin, Ahern & Oser, 2017). Typically, these apps teach new psychological skills to users to learn how to better cope with difficult …

People differ in the ability to control what they pay attention to, especially when they experience emotional distress. Drs. Bardeen and Fergus previously identified this difference in executive attention as a potentially important variable for understanding how posttraumatic stress develops and is maintained. This research study further supports those prior …

Researchers consistently find a relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and physical health problems, including (but not limited to) chronic pain, obesity, diabetes, and heart attacks. One possible explanation for this relationship is that people with PTSD take part in more unhealthy behaviours (e.g., illicit drug use, excessive drinking) and …

The best way to overcome one’s fears and concerns is to confront them. This is as straightforward as it is true. Many studies show that exposure with response prevention (ERP) is the most efficacious treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a mental illness characterized by intrusive thoughts (e.g., fears about getting …