Do therapeutic imagery practices affect physiological and emotional indicators of threat in high self-critics?

Objectives: Imagery is known to be a powerful means of stimulating various physiological processes and is increasingly used within standard psychological therapies. Compassion-focused imagery (CFI) has been used to stimulate affiliative emotion in people with mental health problems. However, evidence suggests that self-critical individuals may have particular difficulties in this domain with single trials. The aim of the present study was to further investigate the role of self-criticism in responsiveness to CFI by specifically pre-selecting participants based on trait self-criticism. Design: Using the Forms of Self-Criticism/Self-Reassuring Scale, 29 individuals from a total sample of 139 were pre-selected to determine how self-criticism impacts upon an initial instance of imagery. Methods: All participants took part in three activities: a control imagery intervention (useable data N = 25), a standard CFI intervention (useable data N = 25), and a non-intervention control (useable data N = 24). Physiological measurements (alpha amylase) as well as questionnaire measures of emotional responding (i.e., the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, the Types of Positive Affect Scale, and the State Adult Attachment Scale) were taken before and after the different interventions. Results: Following both imagery interventions, repeated measures analyses revealed that alpha amylase increased significantly for high self-critics compared with low self-critics. High self-critics (HSC) also reported greater insecurity on entering the imagery session and more negative CFI experiences compared with low self-critics. Practitioner Points: Data demonstrate that HSC respond negatively to imagery interventions in a single trial. This highlights that imagery focused therapies (e.g., CFI) need interventions that manage fears, blocks, and resistances to the techniques, particularly in HSC. An initial instance of imagery (e.g., CFI) can be frightening for people who have a tendency to be self-critical. This research provides examples of physiological and emotional responses to imagery type therapies in high and low self-critics, and associated clinical implications. Therapists may find it helpful to be mindful that when introducing imagery based therapies, highly self-critical patients need interventions that manage fears, blocks, and resistances to the techniques

Unmet psychosocial supportive care needs and psychological distress in haematological cancer survivors: The moderating role of psychological flexibility.

Background The period immediately after the end of cancer treatment is a time when supportive care for the cancer patient decreases; this is known to increase risk of psychological distress and poor wellbeing. While there is broad recognition that unmet psychological and supportive care needs correlate with psychological wellbeing, little is understood about the factors that influence this relationship. This study explores the role of psychological flexibility, with a particular focus on its potential moderating role between unmet needs and psychological distress in haematological cancer survivors. Materials and Method Haematological cancer survivors were recruited for this cross-sectional study through two major UK blood cancer charities. Participants (n=91) were all over the age of 16 and had been diagnosed with any sub-type of haematological cancer more than 18 months previously. Participants completed self-report questionnaires assessing unmet psychological and supportive care needs (SCNS SF34), anxiety and depression (HADS), quality of life (EORTC QLQ-C30) and psychological flexibility (AAQ II). Results High levels of both unmet need and distress were present in the sample, indicating on-going care needs for these cancer survivors. Statistically significant correlations between unmet needs, psychological flexibility and all outcome variables (anxiety, depression, quality of life) were found. Using regression analysis based on Hayes’ methodology (Hayes, 2013), psychological flexibility was found to act as a moderator between unmet need and distress in four out of 15 models; specifically, the statistical relationship between need and distress emerged only when levels of psychological flexibility were at average level or above. Discussion Haematological cancer survivors have on-going supportive care needs that persist well beyond the end of active treatment. Unmet needs can, in turn, increase levels of anxiety and depression, and reduce quality of life in this patient group. The understanding offered by our data that psychological flexibility plays a moderating relationship between need and psychological distress creates opportunities for the development of theoretically-informed interventions to reduce both unmet need and distress in cancer patients. As such, these findings support the growing emphasis on Acceptance and Commitment based interventions for cancer patients

The contribution of individual psychological resilience in determining the professional quality of life of Australian nurses.

Research Topic: The aim of this study was to determine the relative contribution of trait negative affect and individual psychological resilience in explaining the professional quality of life of nurses. Materials and Methods: One thousand, seven hundred and forty-three Australian nurses from the public, private, and aged care sectors completed an online Qualtrics survey. The survey collected demographic data as well as measures of depression, anxiety and stress, trait negative affect, resilience, and professional quality of life. Results: Significant positive relationships were observed between anxiety, depression and stress, trait negative affectivity, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress (compassion fatigue). Significant negative relationships were observed between each of the aforementioned variables and resilience and compassion satisfaction (CS). Results of mediated regression analysis indicated that resilience partially mediates the relationship between trait negative affect and CS. Conclusion: Results confirm the importance of both trait negative affect and resilience in explaining positive aspects of professional quality of life. Importantly, resilience was confirmed as a key variable impacting levels of CS and thus a potentially important variable to target in interventions aimed at improving nurse’s professional quality of life

Self-compassion and bedtime procrastination: an emotion regulation perspective

The current study extended previous research on self-compassion and health behaviours by examining the associations of self-compassion to bedtime procrastination, an important sleep-related behaviour. We hypothesized that lower negative affect and adaptive emotion regulation would explain the proposed links between self-compassion and less bedtime procrastination. Two cross-sectional online studies were conducted. Study 1 included 134 healthy individuals from the community (mean age 30.22, 77.4% female). Study 2 included 646 individuals from the community (mean age 30.74, 68.9% female) who were screened for the absence of clinical insomnia. Participants in both studies completed measures of self-compassion, positive and negative affect and bedtime procrastination. Participants in study 2 also completed a measure of cognitive reappraisal. Multiple mediation analysis in study 1 revealed the expected indirect effects of self-compassion on less bedtime procrastination through lower negative affect [b = − .09, 95% CI = (− .20, − .02), but not higher positive affect. Path analysis in study 2 replicated these findings and further demonstrated that cognitive reappraisal explained the lower negative affect linked to self-compassion [b = − .011; 95% CI = (− .025; − .003)]. The direct effect of self-compassion on less bedtime procrastination remained significant. Our novel findings provide preliminary evidence that self-compassionate people are less likely to engage in bedtime procrastination, due in part to their use of healthy emotion regulation strategies that downregulate negative mood

How does mindfulness modulate self-regulation in pre-adolescent children? : An integrative neurocognitive review

Pre-adolescence is a key developmental period in which complex intrinsic volitional methods of self-regulation are acquired as a result of rapid maturation within the brain networks underlying the self-regulatory processes of attention control and emotion regulation. Fostering adaptive self-regulation skills during this stage of development has strong implications for physical health, emotional and socio-economic outcomes during adulthood. There is a growing interest in mindfulness-based programmes for pre-adolescents with initial findings suggesting self-regulation improvements, however, neurodevelopmental studies on mindfulness with pre-adolescents are scarce. This analytical review outlines an integrative neuro-developmental approach, which combines self-report and behavioural assessments with event related brain potentials (ERPs) to provide a systemic multilevel understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms of mindfulness in pre-adolescence. We specifically focus on the N2, error related negativity (ERN), error positivity (Pe), P3a, P3b and late positive potential (LPP) ERP components as indexes of mindfulness related modulations in non-volitional bottom-up self-regulatory processes (salience detection, stimulus driven orienting and mind wandering) and volitional top-down self-regulatory processes (endogenous orienting and executive attention)