Virtual Reality Therapy in Mental Health

Initially designed for the treatment of phobias, the use of virtual reality in phobic disorders has expanded to other mental health disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder, substance-related disorders, eating disorders, psychosis, and autism spectrum disorder. The goal of this review is to provide an accessible understanding of why this approach is important for future practice, given its potential to provide clinically relevant information associated with the assessment and treatment of people suffering from mental illness.

 

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Population-attributable risk of adverse childhood experiences for high suicide risk, psychiatric admissions, and recurrent depression

Background: Population-attributable risk (PAR) may help estimate the potential contribution of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to serious clinical presentations of depression, characterized by suicidality, previous psychiatric admissions, and episode recurrence. Objective: To determine the PAR of ACEs for serious clinical presentations of depression (high suicide risk, previous psychiatric admissions, and recurrent depression) in outpatients with ICD-10 clinical depression.

 

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Childhood trauma and cognitive biases associated with psychosis : A systematic review and meta-analysis

Childhood trauma is associated with an increased risk of psychosis, but the mechanisms that mediate this relationship are unknown. Exposure to trauma has been hypothesised to lead to cognitive biases that might have causal effects on psychotic symptoms. The literature on whether childhood trauma is associated with psychosis-related cognitive biases has not been comprehensively reviewed.

 

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Mechanisms of change in Internet- and mobile-based interventions for PTSD : a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: While Internet- and mobile-based interventions (IMIs) are potential options to increase the access to evidence-based therapies for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), comprehensive knowledge on their working mechanisms is still scarce.

 

Objective: We aimed to evaluate studies investigating the efficacy and mechanisms of change in IMIs for adults with PTSD.

 

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Causal role for sleep-dependent reactivation of learning-activated sensory ensembles for fear memory consolidation

Learning-activated engram neurons play a critical role in memory recall. An untested hypothesis is that these same neurons play an instructive role in offline memory consolidation. Here we show that a visually-cued fear memory is consolidated during post-conditioning sleep in mice. We then use TRAP (targeted recombination in active populations) to genetically label or optogenetically manipulate primary visual cortex (V1) neurons responsive to the visual cue.

 

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Engaging with the Second World War through Digital Gaming : Omgaan met de Tweede Wereldoorlog via Gaming

Hoe wordt de Tweede Wereldoorlog verbeeld en herinnerd in onze hedendaagse samenleving? Naar die vraag is er de afgelopen decennia veel onderzoek verricht, ook in Nederland. Daarbij lag de klemtoon vaak op geïnstitutionaliseerde vormen van omgang met de Tweede Wereldoorlog, via (nationale) herdenkingen, monumenten, tentoonstellingen en het onderwijs.

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Validation of the new DSM-5-TR criteria for prolonged grief disorder and the PG-13-Revised (PG-13-R) scale

Although the concept of pathological grief dates back at least as far as Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia”, there has been opposition to its recognition as a distinct mental disorder. Resistance has been overcome by evidence demonstrating that distinctive symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (PGD) – an attachment disturbance featuring yearning for the deceased, loss of meaning and identity disruption – can endure, prove distressing and disabling, and require targeted treatment.

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Ritual in Therapy for Prolonged Grief : A Scoping Review of Ritual Elements in Evidence-Informed Grief Interventions

The aim of this article of to analyze ritual in evidence-informed treatments for prolonged and traumatic grief. A scoping review is conducted in order to give an overview of existing literature on ritual and symbolic interventions in grief therapies for prolonged grief and the type of evidence supporting these interventions. The 22 studies reported in this review reveal a variety of ritual elements ranging from symbolic expression and interaction, writing assignments, dialogue with the deceased or an imaginary person, to farewell ceremonies at the end of the treatment.

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Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in COVID-19 survivors : online population survey

This study examined post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in 13 049 survivors of suspected or confirmed COVID-19, from the UK general population, as a function of severity and hospital admission status.

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COVID-19, Moral Injury and the Bhagvad Gita

During life challenging times like the present COVID-19 pandemic, the health care worker (HCW) is faced with a number of questions of an existential nature. There is a sense of guilt, anguish, helplessness, uncertainty and powerlessness when one is fighting something on such a powerful scale with limited resources and no definite end in sight. There are circumstances when these feelings can overwhelm a person leading to demoralization and potentially a moral injury.

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