The Development, Maintenance and Treatment of Intrusive Autobiographical Memories in Depression

University of Technology Sydney. Graduate School of Health.This program of research investigated the role of intrusive memories and rumination in the onset and maintenance of depression, as well as the treatment of these processes. Paper one examined the association between ruminative processing mode and the trajectory of intrusive memories over a 6 hour time period following a negative mood induction. Three classes were found following the video (intrusion free, rapid remitters, slow remitters). Processing mode did not influence the frequency of intrusive memories or predict class membership. Paper two examined whether there are bidirectional relationships between rumination and intrusive memories over the same period of time. A one-way relationship was found whereby rumination predicted future intrusive memories and further rumination, yet this relationship was not bi-directional. Paper three examined whether 12 weekly sessions of imagery rescripting was associated with reductions in symptoms in a clinically depressed sample. Following the treatment, there were significant reductions in symptoms, 87% of participants showed reliable improvement and 80% showed clinically significant improvement and no longer met diagnostic criteria for MDD. This represented a large effect size. Paper four examined whether the characteristics of intrusive memories and ruminative responses to these memories also changed over the course of this treatment. Intrusive memory distress and rumination were found to reduce over the course of treatment. Reduction in depressive symptoms was independent of the level of intrusion characteristics, yet participants who reported higher levels of rumination were found to improve at a slower rate over the course of treatment. Paper five examined whether repetitive negative thinking can be conceptualised as a maladaptive coping mode ‘over-analysing’ consistent with Young’s schema mode model (Young, Klosko & Weishaar. 2003). Correlational and mediation analysis provided support for this model in which the relationship between angry and vulnerable child modes, and worry, rumination, and repetitive negative thinking, respectively, was mediated by experiential avoidance. Paper six examined the changes in schema modes, as well as the relation between these modes and depression symptoms over the course of imagery rescripting treatment for depression. While seven schema modes significantly reduced over the course of treatment, improvement in depression symptoms was not influenced by changes in any of the modes. Finally, Paper seven used two case examples to describe the clinical application of imagery rescripting in depression. The findings from this program of research support the use of imagery rescripting in the treatment of intrusive memories, rumination and depression symptoms

A Nonparametric Estimation of the Local Zipf Exponent for all US Cities

In this short paper we apply the methodology proposed by Ioannides and Overman (2003) to estimate a local Zipf exponent using data for the entire twentieth century of the complete distribution of cities (incorporated places) without any size restrictions in the US. The results reject Zipf’s Law from a long term perspective, as the estimated values are close to zero. However, decade by decade we find evidence in favour of Zipf’s Law. We also see how periods in which the Zipf exponent grows with city size are interspersed with others in which the relationship between the exponent and city shares is negative

Repetitive negative thinking in eating disorders : Identifying and bypassing over-analysing coping modes and building schema attunement

This chapter outlines the potential importance of Repetitive negative thinking (RNT) processes to eating disorder (ED) pathology, before discussing how to conceptualise and treat ED cases from a schema therapy perspective where high levels of RNT may present as a threat to emotional processing. RNT processes such as worry and rumination have been hypothesised to be problematic for cognitive behavioural treatments because they tend to have the effect of blocking emotional processing. Schema attunement is potentially the most important intervention strategy the schema therapist has to offer; perhaps even ‘the glue of schema therapy’. The horizontal axis serves to keep therapists aware that they will also need to balance connection tasks with the tasks of empathic confrontation and setting limits. Treating RNT as representing ‘over-analysing’ coping mode activity represents a promising approach to formulating and managing these difficult clinical phenomena within a schema therapy approach