Loneliness and isolation worsen health and wellbeing have been exacerbated by COVID-19, and represent a significant concern for supporting older adults. Music listening has effects that could be particularly supportive during periods of isolation. The aim of this study is to examine older adults’ music listening behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic and explore music's social and emotional impact in this context. Semi-structured interviews enhanced with music-elicitation were carried out remotely between May and June 2021. Participants were self-selected, community-dwelling older adults residing in Northern Ireland (N = 14; 6 males; 60–83 years). Most were living with their spouse or family, all were of White ethnicity and had varying levels of education. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Two main themes were identified: (1) Music as an emotional resource and (2) Music as a social surrogate. Older adults had a preference for using music to induce positive feelings, and used music for negative affect regulation and consolation. Music acted as a social surrogate providing company, and reminders of social relationships and experiences. Music listening was a valued behaviour during COVID-19. Findings have implications for how music listening might be used as an accessible, low-resource tool for supporting isolated older adults.

The potential efficacy of recently developed cognitive and behavioural treatments (CBT) for residual hallucinations raises practical questions about the extent of applicability of such treatments and the possible need for programmatic responses by mental health services. This pilot study, conducted in a 355-bed acute and rehabilitation psychiatric hospital, explored the prevalence of persisting auditory hallucinations, patients' coping strategies, and indicators for cognitive and behavioural treatments. A census identified 123 patients with persisting hallucinations. Information about practical impediments to CBT was obtained from structured interviews with staff. Detailed interviews with a subsample of 35 hallucinators identified natural coping strategies and indicators for treatment. High rates of natural coping strategies were reported by this very disabled sample. Fifty-three per cent of hallucinators were considered “potential” candidates, and 20% “good” candidates for CBT for voices.

A crucial aspect of behavioural assessment and intervention is the initial interview with the client. Although the interview is the most frequently employed method of assessment, very few published behavioural interview schedules are available to clinicians. The authors present an interview schedule for the behavioural assessment of children's problems. Hopefully, such devices will improve the reliability and validity of problem identification and facilitate effective case management.

Background: The aim of this research was to evaluate an online exposure treatment for spider phobia (www.feardrop.com) and to investigate the effects of intermittent versus continuous exposure.

Methods: Spider phobic participants (N = 23) completed two 14-minute stages of laboratory-based online exposure. In the first of these stages exposure was either continuous or intermittent (alternating fearrelevant and -irrelevant images). One week later, participants commenced a sixstage home-based graded online exposure task, which was undertaken over 30 days. Subjective Units of Distress Scale (SUDS) ratings were taken throughout all exposure stages. Spider fear was assessed prior to treatment, and at 1-week and 1-month post treatment.

Results: Habituation was observed across each stage for both the laboratory and home-based tasks and generalisation of habituation was found between stages. Habituation was not impaired in the alternating fear-relevant and -irrelevant image condition, though subjects experienced less summed anxiety. Adherence rates were low in home-based online exposure. However, participants who completed 30-days post-treatment assessment (n = 14) showed a significant reduction in spider fear as measured by the Fear of Spiders Questionnaire (FSQ).

Conclusions: Online exposure produces habituation and generalisation of habituation to spider images as well as longer-term reductions in spider fear. Alternating fear-relevant and -irrelevant exposure is feasible in online exposure and may lead to habituation with less summed anxiety that has implications for tolerability and acceptability. Measures to increase adherence rates and hence dosage delivered are a key consideration for further online exposure research.

Perfectionism has been argued to have both positive and negative aspects. Negative perfectionism has a robust positive correlation with psychopathology. This study explored the personality pattern of a group of clinical participants and a group of athletes in relation to positive and negative perfectionism. The results indicated negative perfectionism is related to neuroticism and agreeableness in both clinical and non-clinical groups. Negative perfectionism was most strongly associated with low agreeableness but had no significant relationship with conscientiousness or extraversion in the clinical sample. In the athlete sample, higher negative perfectionism was most strongly related to higher neuroticism but was also associated with lower extraversion and conscientiousness. In order to more fully understand these relationships and their clinical implications, more studies using validated measures of positive and negative perfectionism with larger samples are required. It would be useful to determine if personality factors of agreeableness and competence could be increased in order to ameliorate the distress associated with negative perfectionism.

Many of Australia's most serious and distressing mental health problems are related to the breakdown of traditional family support structures. Regardless of age, people who live in families with high levels of interpersonal conflict, violence, poor communication and inadequate care are at increased risk for a variety of mental health problems. This paper summarises the main recommendations of a scientific advisory committee on families and mental health, which prepared the Healthy Families, Healthy Nation: Strategies for Promoting Family Mental Health in Australia (Sanders, 1995). The paper argues for the importance of better utilisation of existing knowledge concerning family support and intervention programs and for the importance of a preventive focus in the provision of family oriented mental health services. We also highlight some of the unresolved issues that should become a focus of future research.

Anxiety disorders are among the most common forms of psychopathology reported by children and adolescents. Anxiety disorders in children have debilitating consequences, both for the child and his/her family. In addition, research indicates that, in many cases, these disorders follow a chronic and persistent course. The efficacy of child-focused cognitive-behavioural interventions in the treatment of childhood anxiety disorders has been well demonstrated by recent, well-controlled research. This treatment outcome literature is briefly reviewed. Most recently, however, interventions used in the treatment of childhood anxiety disorders have taken the form of combined interventions aimed both at the anxious child and his or her family. This paper reviews two related bodies of research in presenting a case for the involvement of families in the treatment of childhood anxiety. First, the etiological evidence implicating the families of anxious children in the development and/or maintenance of childhood anxiety is presented. Second, the treatment outcome studies that have empirically evaluated this type of combined intervention are reviewed.

Dissemination of evidence-based parenting programs in developing countries is warranted, but prior to dissemination, the cultural appropriateness of programs needs to be assessed. This study provides an evaluation of the level of acceptability among Indonesian parents and the efficacy of a brief parenting program, the Triple P-Positive Parenting seminar. Thirty Indonesian parents of children aged 2–12 years old residing in Australia participated in the study. A 90-minute Triple P seminar with minimal changes in the format was delivered to parents in Indonesian. Parents reported a high level of acceptability and satisfaction with the program content. The efficacy of the program was also explored. Parents reported less frequent use of dysfunctional parenting practices, particularly permissive parenting style, and reduction in the intensity of child emotional and behavioural problems 3 weeks after the seminar. The effect was maintained at 3-month follow up. The results suggest that the Triple P seminar is acceptable and useful for Indonesian parents. Substantial changes in the content of the parenting program may not be necessary. Translated materials, culturally relevant examples and opportunity for questions appeared sufficient for parents. Future studies are required, including randomised controlled trials and larger sample sizes.

This study examined whether nonclinical obsessions and nonclinical compulsions relate differently to cognitive and mood factors such as responsibility, perfectionism, trait anxiety and depressed mood. Two hundred and three nonclinical undergraduate psychology students (70.4% females, 29.6% males, mean age = 18.7, SD = 1.1) completed questionnaires. After controlling for the relationship between obsessions and compulsions, obsessions were found to relate significantly more strongly to depressed mood, trait anxiety, socially prescribed perfectionism and responsibility than compulsions. Conversely, compulsions were found to relate more strongly to self-oriented perfectionism than obsessions. These results were interpreted as providing support for the notion that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is maintained by a conflicted mental representation of the self and the world. Obsessions were interpreted as reflecting an overdeveloped vigilance for threat, responsibility and need for social approval. Compulsions were interpreted as emanating from the belief that the self is self-sufficient and resourceful, and that the world is ordered and systematic. Implications for the treatment of OCD were discussed.

This study aims to investigate whether gender differences in the prevalence of depressive symptoms, with girls reporting more depressive symptoms than boys, are related to gender differences in cognitive schema vulnerability. A cross-sectional study investigating adolescents from both clinical (N = 110) and non-clinical samples (N = 118) was conducted, using the Young Schema Questionnaire — Short Form (YSQ-SF) as a measure of cognitive schema vulnerability. Results show that adolescent girls tend to score higher on several maladaptive cognitive schemas, and that these schemas tend to be more highly correlated with depressive symptoms compared to adolescent boys. Further, cognitive schema vulnerability mediated the relationship between life-stress and depressive symptoms in girls but not in boys.

One of the dilemmas in behavioural assessment is the extent to which both specific functional analyses and more general case formulations are dependent on professional judgement and thus subject to bias. While in theory the functional analysis represents hypotheses about controlling variables which can then be subjected to empirical test, the clinical reality is that many such hypotheses are only loosely evaluated, post-hoc, by virtue of the success, or otherwise, of treatment. The role of cultural variables in the development and testing of hypothesised functional relationships is thus particularly difficult to evaluate. This paper suggests guidelines for evaluating the cultural context of behavioural assessment in clinical practice. The proposed criteria are seen as having relevance in assessing clients of both dominant and nondominant cultures. In Aotearoa / New Zealand these issues are examined within a bicultural framework. Legal and moral imperatives defining a partnership between two peoples mandate additional considerations for sound clinical assessment. The practical implications of these issues for ensuring a culturally sensitive application of behavioural assessment principles are examined according to psychometric standards, principles of behaviour change, and ethics.

Behavioural Activation (BA) therapy is a stand-alone evidence-based treatment for depression and also is being applied to anxiety with promising outcomes. Essentially, BA involves structured therapy aimed at increasing the amount of activity in a person's daily life, so that he or she comes into contact with sources of positive reinforcement for clinically healthy behaviours. Originally, contemporary BA was developed as a behaviour therapy treatment condition in a study that compared BA to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Over time, many variants of BA have appeared in the published literature, which included techniques that might be viewed as being incompatible with the original intended treatment model and more similar to generic forms of CBT. The purpose of this article is to provide researchers and practitioners with a description of what we consider to be the distinctive and essential elements of BA therapy.

Physical activity is positively related to various indices of quality of life and is found to reduce symptoms in individuals with chronic pain. This manuscript presents findings from a post hoc analysis investigating whether treatment-related improvements from psychological treatment for chronic pain are mediated by changes in physical activity (PA). Secondary analyses sought to determine predictor variables of PA in patients with chronic pain and to determine the relationship between objective and self-report measurements of PA. The effect of psychological treatment on physical activity was assessed using accelerometers in a sample of participants with chronic pain in a randomised controlled trial comparing 8 weeks of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Participants wore actigraph accelerometers for 7 consecutive days at baseline, post-treatment, and at 6-month follow-up. Hierarchical linear modelling analyses found that the variance in physical activity was not significantly predicted by time (b = 104.67, p = .92) or treatment modality (b = −1659.34, p = .57). Women had greater increases in physical activity than did men (b = 6804.08, p = .02). Current ‘gold standard’ psychological treatments for chronic pain were not found to significantly increase physical activity, an important outcome to target in the treatment of physical and mental health. These results suggest that tailored interventions with greater emphasis on exercise may complement psychological treatment for chronic pain. In particular, gender-tailored interventions may capitalise on physical activity differences found between men and women.

Patients who are diagnosed with advanced cancer frequently experience high levels of anxiety and depression. Few of the studies that evaluated psychological interventions with this cohort have demonstrated improvements in psychological measures in the period following therapy. However, a recent study that evaluated the efficacy of a group cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) intervention with patients who had advanced breast cancer found improved outcomes on measures of mood and self-esteem following the intervention. This paper describes some of the CBT techniques used in the intervention, which might also be useful in the treatment of patients with other types of terminal illness.

This article appraises the ability of several measures, assessing symptomatology theoretically relevant to generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), to accomplish successful classification of individuals with DSM-IV GAD and individuals with mood or other anxiety disorders. Participants were 197 individuals (average age = 36.43; 67.5% female) receiving treatment at a clinic, who completed pretreatment self-report measures. Receiver operator characteristic analyses and logistic regression analyses were employed to determine the classificatory abilities, including sensitivity and specificity, of several GAD relevant measures. The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) accomplished significant classification in both comparison group dyads: GAD-Anxiety and GAD-Mood. Whereas the general distress of depression subscale of the Mood and Anxiety Symptoms Questionnaire (MASQ) accomplished significant classification in the GAD-Anxiety group dyad, both the general distress of anxiety and anxious arousal subscales of the MASQ did so in the GAD-Mood group dyad. Only the PSWQ significantly predicted the presence of GAD, while controlling for other symptom variables. Though evidence supports the uniqueness of some symptoms of GAD, including worry, often considered pathognomonic to GAD, the modest areas under the curve, sensitivity, and specificity of the measures afford tenuous support for the utility of these measures. The lack of highly sensitive and specific symptomatology comport with critiques of GAD as a diagnostically delimited category.

Described here is a brief history and critique of behavioural parent training, followed by a description of an ecobehavioural approach to families with children with developmental disabilities and families involved in child abuse and neglect. A definition of ecobehavioural is provided, along with suggestions for future research.

Figural rating scales are tools used to measure male body dissatisfaction. The present review aimed to examine the design and psychometric properties of male figural rating scales and make recommendations based on findings. Relevant databases were systematically searched for studies that had developed and validated male figural rating scales. Twenty studies were included in this review. Figural rating scales differed in terms of the number of images represented and type of stimuli used (hand-drawn silhouettes, hand-drawn figures, computer-rendered figures, and photograph figures). Reliability and validity evidence varied greatly in strength across all scales. Four of the 20 scales included a correlational analysis between figural rating scale scores and eating disorder symptoms. Results showed the moderate to high positive correlations between eating disorder symptoms and figural rating scale perceived and index scores, suggesting that figural rating scales are sensitive to detecting eating disorder symptoms. Ideally, male figural rating scales should show strong validity and reliability, include variations in both body fat and muscularity, utilise realistic body stimuli, and be interval scales. No existing male figural rating scale meets these criteria. However, this review identifies five figural rating scales that meet the majority of the recommended criteria.

Objectives: Interpersonal difficulties have been implicated in both anxiety and depression. However, much less is known about whether interpersonal difficulties may account for, in part, the high level of comorbidity between mood and anxiety symptoms. This study examined whether various interpersonal difficulties, assessed with the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems, Short Circumplex (IIP-SC), were underlying mechanisms in the relationship between anxiety and depression symptoms in a high-risk sample of late adolescents with clinical levels of anxiety. Methods: 144 late adolescents with clinical levels of anxiety (mean age = 18.63 years; SD = 0.92) reported on their trait anxiety, worry, anxiety and depressive symptoms, and interpersonal problems. Results: Consistent with hypotheses, the IIP-SC overly nurturant subscale partially accounted for the relationship between anxiety and depression. The IIP-SC non-assertive and social avoidant subscales did not significantly account for the anxiety-depression relationship. Conclusions: Findings suggest that interpersonal behaviours characterised by excessive attempts to please and accommodate others may ultimately contribute to our understanding of the anxiety-depression association. We discuss the implications of our findings and how they may be applied to evidence-based assessment and treatment of anxiety problems.

The prevention of severe psychopathology has long been held as a goal of psychological intervention with children. This paper examines the role of behavioural family intervention in the prevention of conduct problems in children. Components of a prevention model and their conceptual and empirical justification are outlined as well as some practical obstacles to the development of comprehensive, preventively oriented, mental health services for children and families. Possible directions for future research with high risk groups are discussed.

The present study investigated whether MI is a mechanism for change in the treatment of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). The Magical Ideation scale (MI), the Obsessive–Compulsive Inventory — Short Version (OCI-SV) and the Padua Inventory were completed by 34 obsessive–compulsive patients pre- and post cognitive–behavioural treatment. Treatment did not target magical styles of thinking. Significant improvements on all three measures of obsessive–compulsive symptoms were demonstrated by t tests over the course of treatment. Improvement in magical thinking was also shown to be significant in t test results. In support of the hypothesis, correlations between MI improvement and improvement on the obsessive–compulsive symptom scales were significant (at a level of .05) suggesting that there is an association between improvement in magical thinking and improvement in obsessive–compulsive symptoms. Notably, a significant negative correlation was obtained between prescores on MI and change scores on the OCD measures. This suggests that high levels of MI are associated with high levels of treatment intractability. High MI appears to be a poor prognostic factor in OCD.