| 1. |
- Döllinger, Lillian, 1986-
(författare)
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I know how you feel : Emotion recognition accuracy and training in psychotherapy education
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Researchers, practitioners and legislators agree that it is important to understand which kinds of psychotherapeutic treatments lead to lasting positive changes in patients’ well-being, how those treatments can be administered in efficient ways and how it can be determined which patients would benefit from which treatment. In recent years, there has also been growing interest in those who practice psychotherapy; specifically, in the socio-emotional and interpersonal characteristics and competencies that psychotherapists should possess to provide high quality treatments for a variety of patients, irrespective of psychotherapy approach. This thesis studies one such important psychotherapist competency, namely the ability to recognize non-verbal emotional expressions in others. Psychotherapists need to be able to help patients experience, understand and express their emotions, and, in this context, it is crucial that they themselves have good socio-emotional competencies, like emotion recognition accuracy. Still, there is surprisingly little research about psychotherapists’ emotion recognition accuracy and about how they could be supported in improving this ability in the course of their education. Study I explores trainee psychotherapists’ emotion recognition accuracy in the beginning and in the end of theoretical and practical psychotherapy education, and compares it to a control group of undergraduate students. The results reveal that trainee psychotherapists in the beginning of their education show superior emotion recognition accuracy for multimodal (audio, video, audio-video) emotional expressions and micro expressions (<200ms) compared to the control group. This suggests that those who choose to become psychotherapists might already possess elevated emotion recognition accuracy or might have developed it early on during their studies. However, after one and a half years of education, their multimodal and micro expression emotion recognition accuracy does not improve significantly more than the control groups’ accuracy. This suggests that standard (psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral) psychotherapy education does not automatically lead to improved emotion recognition accuracy, even though the trainees learn how to conduct psychotherapy and also treat their first patients at the university clinic. Or, alternatively, that the socio-emotional competencies that develop during the education might not be captured by the standardized computerized emotion recognition accuracy tasks used in this study. Nonetheless, this finding might also suggest that more explicit training of emotion recognition accuracy is needed. Study II then investigates two newly developed standardized computerized emotion recognition accuracy trainings, one for multimodal emotion recognition accuracy and one for micro expression recognition accuracy. The trainings are evaluated in a sample of undergraduate students using a mixed design. The trainings are compared to one another and to an active control training. Both trainings are found to significantly improve the participants’ emotion recognition accuracy in a one-week posttest. Study III extends those findings using a sample of trainee psychotherapists. Also in the target population, both trainings are found to be effective in the one-week posttest. In addition to that, the multimodal training shows effects for unimodal emotion recognition accuracy for audio-only and video-only stimuli in the one-year follow-up towards the end of psychotherapy education. This indicates that standardized computerized emotion recognition accuracy training can be used as a tool for improving trainee psychotherapists’ emotion recognition accuracy, even though additional interventions might be needed for securing long-term success for all facets of emotion recognition. Future research should explore the practical impact of trainee psychotherapists’ emotion recognition accuracy and the training of this ability. The findings of this thesis are, on the one hand, surprising, in so far as psychotherapy education likely does not lead to improvements in trainee psychotherapists’ emotion recognition accuracy. On the other hand, they are encouraging, because they suggest that this ability can be trained with relatively simple and resource-efficient methods. Emotion recognition accuracy training could become part of standard or individualized psychotherapy training, alongside the training of other relevant verbal and non-verbal socio-emotional and interpersonal psychotherapist competencies.
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| 2. |
- Halstensen, Kari, et al.
(författare)
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Depression and Mentalizing : A Psychodynamic Therapy Process Study
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of counseling psychology. - : American Psychological Association (APA). - 0022-0167 .- 1939-2168. ; 68:6, s. 705-718
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The present study aimed to explore the relationship between changes in depressive symptoms and the capacity to mentalize over the course of a 3-month inpatient psychodynamic therapy in a sample of 56 patients with depression. Depressive symptoms and mentalizing were assessed weekly during treatment and at 1-year follow-up with the Beck Depression Inventory and the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ). Data were analyzed using Latent Growth Curve (LGC) modeling with structured residuals. In the total sample, depressive symptoms improved on average from baseline to the end of treatment, while mentalizing skills did not. However, individual variations were observed in mentalizing skills, with some patients improving while others did not. Within-patient residual changes in mentalizing skills did not predict residual changes in depressive symptoms. Accordingly, the results did not support mentalizing as a mechanism of change at this level. Nonetheless, between-patient effects were found, showing that patients with higher levels of mentalizing at baseline and patients whose mentalizing skills improved over the course of therapy also had greater reductions in depressive symptoms. We suggest that the presence of relatively higher mentalizing skills might be a factor contributing to moderately depressed individuals' ability to benefit from treatment, while relatively poor or absent mentalizing capacity might be part of the dynamics underlying treatment resistance in individuals with severe depression.
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| 3. |
- Plomion, Christophe, et al.
(författare)
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Oak genome reveals facets of long lifespan
- 2018
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Ingår i: NATURE PLANTS. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2055-026X .- 2055-0278. ; 4:7, s. 440-452
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Oaks are an important part of our natural and cultural heritage. Not only are they ubiquitous in our most common landscapes' but they have also supplied human societies with invaluable services, including food and shelter, since prehistoric times(2). With 450 species spread throughout Asia, Europe and America(3), oaks constitute a critical global renewable resource. The longevity of oaks (several hundred years) probably underlies their emblematic cultural and historical importance. Such long-lived sessile organisms must persist in the face of a wide range of abiotic and biotic threats over their lifespans. We investigated the genomic features associated with such a long lifespan by sequencing, assembling and annotating the oak genome. We then used the growing number of whole-genome sequences for plants (including tree and herbaceous species) to investigate the parallel evolution of genomic characteristics potentially underpinning tree longevity. A further consequence of the long lifespan of trees is their accumulation of somatic mutations during mitotic divisions of stem cells present in the shoot apical meristems. Empirical(4) and modelling(5) approaches have shown that intra-organismal genetic heterogeneity can be selected for(6) and provides direct fitness benefits in the arms race with short-lived pests and pathogens through a patchwork of intra-organismal phenotypes(7). However, there is no clear proof that large-statured trees consist of a genetic mosaic of clonally distinct cell lineages within and between branches. Through this case study of oak, we demonstrate the accumulation and transmission of somatic mutations and the expansion of disease-resistance gene families in trees.
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| 4. |
- Van Geelen, Stefan, et al.
(författare)
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The Self beyond Somatic Symptoms : A Narrative Approach to Self-Experience in Adolescent Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- 2015
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Ingår i: Psychopathology. - : S. Karger. - 0254-4962 .- 1423-033X. ; 48:5, s. 278-286
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The self and self-experience are often assumed to play an important role in adolescent patients presenting with severe somatic symptoms and bodily distress. Nonetheless, most empirical work on this subject is confined to studies of personality and patients' experience of negative emotionality. This study aims to move beyond mere descriptions of symptoms, traits and distress, and consequently adopts a narrative approach to self-experience in adolescent chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Sampling and Methods: The self-confrontation method (SCM) is a well-validated instrument to systematically analyze narrative self-experience. The SCM was used to study 42 adolescents with CFS, compared to 36 adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and 25 matched healthy controls. The Child Health Questionnaire (CHQ-CF87) was used to assess mental health, self-esteem, and physical and psychosocial functioning. Results: Both patient groups reported significantly less positive self-experience of autonomy and success compared to healthy controls. Furthermore, patients with CFS described significantly more negative self-experience of powerlessness, isolation and unfulfilled longing. In the CHQ-CF87, both patient groups scored significantly lower on physical functioning than controls. Adolescents with CFS also scored significantly lower on mental health and self-esteem. Conclusions: Adolescent CFS entails a serious threat to the self, which might be inherent to the condition. Not only are patients more impaired in mental health, self-esteem, and physical and psychosocial functioning than patients with JIA, they also suffer from a distinct combination of high negative and low positive self-experience. These findings stress the need for strategies that empower patients towards a 'management of the self'. (C) 2015 S. Karger AG, Basel
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| 5. |
- Wienicke, Frederik J., et al.
(författare)
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Efficacy and moderators of short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy for depression : A systematic review and meta-analysis of individual participant data
- 2023
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Ingår i: Clinical Psychology Review. - : Elsevier. - 0272-7358 .- 1873-7811. ; 101
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy (STPP) is frequently used to treat depression, but it is unclear which patients might benefit specifically. Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses can provide more precise effect estimates than conventional meta-analyses and identify patient-level moderators. This IPD meta-analysis examined the efficacy and moderators of STPP for depression compared to control conditions.Methods: PubMed, PsycInfo, Embase, and Cochrane Library were searched September 1st, 2022, to identify randomized trials comparing STPP to control conditions for adults with depression. IPD were requested and analyzed using mixed-effects models.Results: IPD were obtained from 11 of the 13 (84.6%) studies identified (n = 771/837, 92.1%; mean age = 40.8, SD = 13.3; 79.3% female). STPP resulted in significantly lower depressive symptom levels than control conditions at post-treatment (d = −0.62, 95%CI [−0.76, −0.47], p < .001). At post-treatment, STPP was more efficacious for participants with longer rather than shorter current depressive episode durations.Conclusions: These results support the evidence base of STPP for depression and indicate episode duration as an effect modifier. This moderator finding, however, is observational and requires prospective validation in future large-scale trials.
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