Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

OCD-like checking in the lab: A meta-analysis and improvement of an experimental paradigm
Publication date: Available online 12 December 2017Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related DisordersAuthor(s): Marcel A. van den Hout, Eva A.M. van Dis, Clair van Woudenberg, Ilse H. van de GroepAbstractVan den Hout and Kindt (2003a) developed a Virtual Gas Stove Checking paradigm. They demonstrated that repeated checking resulted in lower confidence and reduced the vividness and detail of recollections. Over the past decades, many experiments have used (an adaptation of) this experimental paradigm to study phenomena related to obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD). The first aim of the present study was to cond...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

Don’t tell me what to think: Comparing self- and other-generated distraction methods for controlling intrusive thinking
Publication date: Available online 12 December 2017Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related DisordersAuthor(s): Joshua C. Magee, Sarah E. Dreyer-Oren, Laurel D. Sarfan, Bethany A. Teachman, Elise M. ClerkinAbstractCognitive control is central to the phenomenon of intrusive thinking in obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. The current study tested how attempts at cognitive control are impacted by self- vs. other-generated distractor thoughts. Participants (N=1913) were randomly assigned to suppress or monitor an intrusive thought and also randomly assigned to: a) self-generate a distractor, b) receive a dis...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

Attentional biases of vigilance and maintenance in obsessive-compulsive disorder: An eye-tracking study
ConclusionsPatients with checking-related symptoms of OCD showed a maintenance bias to checking-related stimuli. Due to methodological limitations, the results should be considered preliminary and need to be replicated before firm conclusions can be drawn. (Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders)
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

On the relevance of experimental studies of cognitive processes for understanding and treating obsessive-compulsive disorder
Publication date: Available online 27 December 2017Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related DisordersAuthor(s): Marit Hauschildt, Reuven DarAbstractThe advance of cognitive models of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has inspired a flurry of innovative experimental studies that have investigated various cognitive processes in OCD using a wide range of experimental approaches. This work has significantly expanded our understanding of the condition, informed new treatment approaches, and optimized established ones. Nevertheless, this field of research is currently facing a number of internal challenges, such as ...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

Have I done enough to avoid blame? Fear of guilt evokes OCD-like indecisiveness
This study therefore explored whether fear of guilt predicts decision-making parameters, such as the amount and type of information required to make decisions, decision latency, and the subjective experience of making decisions. Sixty-three undergraduate students were given 12 hypothetical scenarios in which a decision had to be made to ensure safety and avoid harm. There were no limits on deliberation time, and participants could request up to four pieces of information before making decisions. Fear of guilt was associated with the need for more information before making a decision, but not more time to make a decision, a...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

Rumination on unwanted intrusive thoughts affects the urge to neutralize in nonclinical individuals
Publication date: Available online 19 February 2018Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related DisordersAuthor(s): Karina Wahl, Marcel van den Hout, Roselind LiebAbstractRumination on symptoms of mental disorders is involved in the onset and maintenance of these symptoms across a range of mental disorders. The purpose of the study was to investigate whether rumination on unwanted intrusive thoughts (UITs) has an immediate causal effect on discomfort, urge to do something about the UITs (i.e., to neutralize) and frequency of the UITs, as well as on depressed mood. A UIT was activated by asking nonclinical participan...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

Pediatric OCD in the era of RDoC
Publication date: Available online 7 March 2018Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related DisordersAuthor(s): Sarah L. Garnaat, Christine A. Conelea, Nicole C.R. McLaughlin, Kristen BenitoAbstractThe NIMH Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative was established with the goal of developing an alternative research classification to further research efforts in mental health. While RDoC acknowledges that constructs should be considered within a developmental framework, developmental considerations have not yet been well integrated within the existing RDoC matrix. In this paper, we consider RDoC in relation to pediat...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

Biomedical causal attributions for obsessive-compulsive disorder: Associations with patient perceptions of prognosis and treatment expectancy
Publication date: Available online 7 March 2018Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related DisordersAuthor(s): Marina Gershkovich, Brett J. Deacon, Michael G. WheatonAbstractIn recent years, with scientific advances and growing understanding of neurobiological processes, biomedical explanations of psychiatric disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), have become more prominent in research and in clinical care. Patient perceptions of biomedical models of OCD have been understudied, particularly in how they relate to patients’ beliefs about prognosis and treatment expectancy. The current study measu...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

Emotion regulation and hoarding symptoms
Publication date: Available online 19 March 2018Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related DisordersAuthor(s): Jasmine K. Taylor, Richard Moulding, Maja NedeljkovicAbstractHoarding disorder is a disabling condition associated with significant health risks, and social, occupational, and economic impairment. While the cognitive-behavioral model of compulsive hoarding has been successful in explaining the phenomenology of hoarding, recent research has suggested emotion regulation (ER) might play an important role in driving hoarding symptoms. To investigate this notion, two non-clinical questionnaire studies were con...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

The relationship of inferential confusion and obsessive beliefs with specific obsessive-compulsive symptoms
This study aimed to investigate the specificity of inferential confusion and obsessive beliefs to symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The construct of inferential confusion is grounded in an Inference-Based Approach (IBA) to the study of OCD, which maintains that dysfunctional reasoning plays a central role in its development, whereas other cognitive models have emphasized the role of obsessive beliefs in the escalation of intrusive thoughts into obsessions. To investigate the role of inferential confusion and obsessive beliefs, a group of individuals diagnosed with OCD (N = 296) completed the Inferential ...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

Examining associations between thought-action fusion and state mental contamination following an in vivo thought induction task
Publication date: April 2018Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, Volume 17Author(s): Thomas A. Fergus, Wade C. RowattAbstractIntrusive thoughts can evoke an internal cue of distress known as mental contamination and thought-action fusion (TAF) is a potentially important individual difference variable for understanding the experience of mental contamination following intrusive thoughts. A large sample of college students (N = 320) completed a thought-induction task to examine how (a) TAF relates to three indices of state mental contamination (dirtiness, number of perceived dirty body locations, urg...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

The polluted mind: Understanding mental contamination as a transdiagnostic phenomenon
Publication date: April 2018Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, Volume 17Author(s): Shannon M. Blakey, Ryan J. JacobyAbstractThe transdiagnostic approach to conceptualizing anxiety disorders posits that (a) these conditions have more similarities than differences and (b) treatments for clinical anxiety are improved by greater understanding of mechanisms shared among the anxiety disorders. Accordingly, researchers have sought to examine psychological phenomena relevant to multiple anxiety-related conditions. One such phenomenon is mental contamination: the syndrome whereby an individual feels “d...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

The origins of mental contamination
ConclusionContact contamination tends to precede mental contamination and is associated with specific incidents. Mental contamination precedents often involved immoral acts (direct learning) in which the person was the victim or perpetrator. In contrast contact contamination fears showed a more equal distribution of direct, vicarious and informational. This study is limited by a small sample size and retrospective method but provides an initial understanding of the origins of mental contamination. (Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders)
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

Associations between mental contamination, disgust, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in the context of trauma
Publication date: April 2018Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, Volume 17Author(s): Rachel Ojserkis, Dean McKay, Antoine LebeautAbstractMental contamination (MC), feeling dirty in the absence of a physical contaminant, has been linked to the basic emotion of disgust. Both MC and disgust have been associated with posttraumatic stress (PTS) and obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms occurring separately as well as together. However, there is no consensus on the specific ways in which these constructs interact with each other, PTS, or OC symptoms. Thus, this study sought to specify the associations betw...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research

Abnormal and normal mental contamination
Publication date: April 2018Source: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, Volume 17Author(s): Adam S. Radomsky, Anna Coughtrey, Roz Shafran, S. RachmanAbstractMental contamination is defined and the main features of the phenomenon are set out. In addition to the familiar form of abnormal mental contamination, as evident in psychological disorders, notably Obsessive-compulsive Disorder, the phenomenon of non-clinical mental contamination is common. The clinical form is distressing, uncontrollable, constant and dysfunctional. The normal phenomenon can be disturbing but it is usually dormant, evoked intermitt...
Source: Journal of Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders - July 10, 2018 Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research