INTRODUCTION: Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy (MDMA-AP) is a potentially transformative intervention for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite encouraging Phase III trial results, the psychological mechanisms underpinning MDMA's therapeutic effects remain insufficiently understood. Existing research on MDMA has emphasised neurobiological processes but has...
Developmental trauma (DT), defined as abuse or neglect before age 18, is linked with elevated risk and poorer outcomes in psychosis. This systematic review aimed to elucidate the relationship between DT and dissociation in psychosis and discern the potential mediating role of dissociation in the link between DT and psychotic manifestations. Our study protocol was pre-registered with PROSPERO...
Scientific ReportsJuly 30, 2024J. D. Griffin, K. M. J. Diederen, J. Haarsma et al.5 citations
We used a probabilistic reversal learning task to examine prediction error-driven belief updating in three clinical groups with psychosis or psychosis-like symptoms. Study 1 compared people with at-risk mental state and first episode psychosis (FEP) to matched controls. Study 2 compared people diagnosed with treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) to matched controls. The design replicated our...
Emotions have been shown to exert influences on decision making during economic exchanges. Here we investigate the underlying neural mechanisms of a training regimen which is hypothesized to promote emotional awareness, specifically mindfulness training (MT). We test the hypothesis that MT increases cooperative economic decision making using fMRI in a randomized longitudinal design involving...
The relationship between psychoanalysis and attachment theory is complex indeed. A brief review of the psychoanalytic literature as it concerns attachment theory and research, and of the attachment literature as it pertains to psychoanalytic ideas, demonstrates an increasing interest in attachment theory within psychoanalysis. Some of the difficulties that attachment theory faces in relation to...