Transtornos Alimentares (TA) são transtornos mentais considerados graves. Dentre eles, Anorexia Nervosa e Bulimia Nervosa compartilham sintomas e características psicopatológicas como hábitos desregulados de alimentação, métodos extremos para controle do peso, e preocupações exageradas com a forma e o peso corporal. Os TA compartilham ainda sintomas comuns em outros transtornos psiquiátricos, como Depressão e Ansiedade. Pesquisas sobre o tema devem levar em conta este amplo espectro de sintomas. A meditação é uma prática que tem recebido crescente atenção de pesquisadores de diversas áreas de saúde. Dentro da área de Psiquiatria, a meditação mindfulness tem sido estudada como terapia complementar para diversos transtornos, sendo os mais pesquisados os transtornos de ansiedade, a depressão e a dependência química. Alguns programas baseados em mindfulness já demonstraram resultados positivos em pacientes com Compulsão Alimentar e Bulimia Nervosa. Este é um projeto que teve a intenção de desenvolver e mensurar os efeitos de uma nova intervenção baseada em meditação mindfulness para pacientes internados na Enfermaria de Comportamentos Alimentares (ECAL) do Instituto de Psiquiatria do Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo. A hipótese primária foi que o treinamento em mindfulness diminuiria sintomas de ansiedade e depressão, em comparação com os pacientes que seguiram o tratamento usual da enfermaria. O projeto todo teve duração de três anos, sendo dividido em fase piloto, fase grupo controle e fase grupo intervenção. Cada fase aconteceu em diferentes períodos de tempo, para que um número adequado de indivíduos fosse alcançado para fins de pesquisa. Avaliações foram feitas sempre nos mesmos períodos para os três grupos: durante a primeira semana de internação e após 8 semanas, ou antes, se o paciente recebesse alta. Os resultados do grupo piloto foram positivos e ajudaram a delinear os exercícios que compuseram o programa aplicado na intervenção. A comparação dos resultados do grupo controle com o grupo intervenção apresentou significativa diferença para os índices de ansiedade (p < 0,01), depressão (p < 0,03), capacidade de agir com atenção (p < 0,01) e atitudes alimentares relacionadas a dietas (p < 0,04). Como previsto e em linha com outras pesquisas utilizando mindfulness para indivíduos com TA menos grave, este protocolo de oito sessões demonstrou efeito positivo e significativo apesar dos desafios de trabalhar com esta população neste contexto. Estes resultados dão suporte a novas pesquisas que poderão testá-los e compreender melhor a duração dos efeitos terapêuticos deste treinamento. Também, devem ser considerados aprimoramentos necessários, como refinamento dos exercícios, capacitação de outros terapeutas no protocolo e treinamento em mindfulness para outros profissionais envolvidos / Eating disorders (ED) are considered severe mental disorders. Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa are disorders that share symptoms and psychopathological characteristics such as deregulated feeding habits, extreme methods for weight control and exaggerated concerns about shape and weight. Eating Disorders also share common symptoms with other psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety. Research on eating disorders should take into account this wide spectrum of symptoms. Meditation is a practice that has received increasing attention from researchers in various areas of healthcare. Within the area of Psychiatry, mindfulness meditation has been studied as a complementary therapy for many disorders, and the most researched are anxiety, depression and addiction. Some mindfulness-based programs have already shown promising results in patients with Binge Eating Disorder and Bulimia Nervosa. This research project aimed to measure the effects of a mindfulness meditation intervention delivered to patients admitted to the Eating Disorders Ward at the Institute of Psychiatry in the Clinical Hospital for the Medical School, University of São Paulo. The primary hypothesis was that mindfulness training would lower symptoms measuring anxiety and depression compared to inpatients that received treatment as usual. The entire project was conducted during three years, with a pilot group phase, a control group phase and an intervention group phase. Each phase happened in different periods of time so the study could recruit a suitable number of participants. Assessments were made for all groups during the first week of admission and at eight weeks (or earlier if the patient were to be discharged). Pilot results were positive and helped delineate exercises that would be part of the main study intervention protocol. The final analysis comparing control and intervention group showed significant differences for measures in anxiety (p < 0.01), depression (p < 0.03), acting with awareness (p < 0.01) and dieting attitudes (p < 0.04). As hypothesized and in line with previous research with less severe eating disorders samples, this novel eight week program showed a positive and significant effect despite the challenges of working with this population and in this setting. These findings will inform future research which will need to replicate the findings, understand more about the durability of the effects and consider the resource allocation (eg staff training) needed to offer this promising intervention in this setting

It is increasingly clear that pain and emotions are closely interconnected. Pain does not only cause psychological distress, but psychological distress also amplifies pain through neurological mechanisms. Treatment of both chronic and acute pain would benefit from acknowledging the psychological mechanisms of pain neurophysiology. Psychological acceptance predicts increased pain tolerance and decreased pain intensity and discomfort in experimentally induced pain and improved physical and psychosocial functioning for persons with chronic pain. The overall aim of this thesis was to evaluate acceptance-based interventions for persons suffering from pain. In Study I the effect of a manualised ACT-based self-help intervention for adults with chronic pain was evaluated in an RCT (n=90). The results showed improvements in satisfaction with life, physical functioning and pain intensity for the ACT group. Both the ACT and the control group improved regarding depression and anxiety. In Study II the mediating effect of acceptance for treatment change was evaluated, using data from Study I (n=64). The results showed indirect effects of treatment via acceptance for physical functioning but not for satisfaction with life. In Studies III and IV, instruments to measure psychological flexibility in relation to pain were developed for children with cancer, and their parents respectively, using factor analysis. The results showed that a two-factor solution for the child scale (n=61) and a three-factor solution for the parent scale (n=243), best represented the data. In Study V, an acceptance-based intervention was preliminarily evaluated in a single-subject study (n=5) for children reporting pain during cancer treatment. The intervention consisted of an approximately 15-minute long pain exposure exercise. All participants reported reduced discomfort of pain, and three of the participants reported reduced pain intensity. The results suggest that a manualised ACT-based self-help intervention is a valuable addition to the treatment repertoire for persons with chronic pain and that acceptance may mediate the effect of treatment on physical functioning. Furthermore, instruments to measure acceptance in the context of acute pain in children with cancer are now available, although further validation is needed. Lastly, the results indicate that an acceptance-based intervention may help children undergoing cancer treatment to cope with pain.

Le développement du Capital Emotionnel pour un Mindful Management et une Qualité de Vie au Travail : une approche de la prévention des risques psycho-sociaux, du stress en particulier, par la psychologie positive et la thérapie de l’acceptation et de l’engagement (ACT) chez les apprentis aides-soignants et futurs personnels éducatifs / The development of Emotional Capital for Mindful Management and Quality of Life at Work: an approach to prevention of psychosocial risks, stress in particular, positive psychology via the acceptance and commitment therapy approach for apprentices carers and futur educators

Background: Nonresponsiveness to therapy is generally acknowledged, but only a few studies have tested switching to psychotherapy. This study is one of the first to examine the malleability of treatment-resistant patients using acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Methods: This was a randomized controlled trial that included 43 patients diagnosed with primary panic disorder and/or agoraphobia (PD/A) with prior unsuccessful state-of-the-art treatment (mean number of previous sessions = 42.2). Patients were treated with an ACT manual administered by novice therapists and followed up for 6 months. They were randomized to immediate treatment (n = 33) or a 4-week waiting list (n = 10) with delayed treatment (n = 8). Treatment consisted of eight sessions, implemented twice weekly over 4 weeks. Primary outcomes were measured with the Panic and Agoraphobia Scale (PAS), the Clinical Global Impression (CGI), and the Mobility Inventory (MI). Results: At post-treatment, patients who received ACT reported significantly more improvements on the PAS and CGI (d = 0.72 and 0.89, respectively) than those who were on the waiting list, while improvement on the MI (d = 0.50) was nearly significant. Secondary outcomes were consistent with ACT theory. Follow-up assessments indicated a stable and continued improvement after treatment. The dropout rate was low (9%). Conclusions: Despite a clinically challenging sample and brief treatment administered by novice therapists, patients who received ACT reported significantly greater changes in functioning and symptomatology than those on the waiting list, with medium-to-large effect sizes that were maintained for at least 6 months. These proof-ofprinciple data suggest that ACT is a viable treatment option for treatment-resistant PD/A patients. Further work on switching to psychotherapy for nonresponders is clearly needed.

多くの肥満者は，生活習慣のセルフマネジメントが困難であると指摘される。これに対し本稿は，肥満者の行動的QOLの低さ，すなわち行動レパートリーの不足に着目し，それを拡大する援助方略を行動変動性の観点から検討した。その結果，行動変動性が回避場面で減少することが示され，行動変動性に対する強化手続きや，その応用であるアクセプタンス＆コミットメント・セラピーが行動的QOLの拡大に有効であることが示された。 / It has been argued that many individuals with obesity have difficulty managing their lifestyle. This study focused on lack of behavioral repertory as a cause of the difficulty and attempted to expand behavioral repertory and behavioral quality of life (QOL) from the viewpoint of behavioral variability. The result showed that the decrease in behavioral variability was related to avoidant behavior. Furthermore, the result showed that reinforcement of behavioral variability and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) promoted behavioral QOL expansion and lifestyle improvement. / 博士(心理学) / Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

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<p>Examen i vårdadministration, YH-utbildning: 20 Yh-poäng</p>

Abstract Rule-governed behavior is a unique form of human behavior that comes with many advantages. Rule-following can however become problematic when it makes us insensitive to the consequences of our behavior and undermines our ability to adapt to changes in contingencies. This phenomenon has been hypothesized to play a central role in different psychological problems. In this thesis project, we investigated whether a mindfulness exercise from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) could improve people's ability to adapt to changes in contingencies, as measured with the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). We also explored whether recently developed self-report questionnaires of rule-governed behavior, the Generalized Pliance Questionnaire (GPQ-9) and the Generalized Tracking Questionnaire (GTQ) could predict the participants' performance on the WCST. In addition, we looked at the association between intolerance of uncertainty (IUS-12) and generalized pliance (GPQ-9). The sample consisted of 45 university students at Örebro university in Sweden. The results revealed that the brief mindfulness exercise did not improve the participants ability to adapt to contingency changes. The questionnaires of rule-governed behavior also did not predict this performance on the WCST. However, we found a novel association between generalized pliance and intolerance of uncertainty, which could be a future research path. Further, generalized pliance and generalized tracking displayed a moderate negative correlation, in line with previous research. Despite limited significant findings in this study, it was an effort to investigate central claims from the ACTand behavioral literature, centered around psychological flexibility and rule-governed behavior.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The presence of a chronic pain condition can have a profound impact on one’s self-concept. Some individuals may have had to make major lifestyle changes. As a result, some people may start to define themselves in terms of their pain, such that their self-schema and pain-schemas become intertwined in a process termed schema-enmeshment. It is thought that schema-enmeshment is related to psychological distress making it a prime target for intervention. Little research has been conducted on interventions to reduce schema-enmeshment. Acceptance-based interventions may be especially appropriate in reducing schema-enmeshment or the connection between self and illness symptoms as these interventions tend to emphasize learning to live with pain and other symptoms and to work toward important life goals rather than continually fighting against the condition and allowing it to control their life. This study is a randomized trial comparing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to education about pain management in a sample of women with Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS). The primary aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of ACT in reducing schema-enmeshment between self and pain, as well as enmeshment between self and other symptoms and FMS as a whole. In addition, this study also explored the role of pain acceptance, specifically activity engagement as a mediator of the relationship between treatment group membership and changes in schema-enmeshment. The data was analyzed as an intent-to-treat analysis using the “last measure carried forward” method. Results indicated that the ACT group reported statistically significant differences in self schema-enmeshment with FMS, fatigue, and cognitive symptoms, but not with pain, following the intervention, compared to the educational control group. In each of these cases, the ACT group experienced greater reductions in schema-enmeshment compared to the education group. Interestingly, no statistically significant differences were observed for schema-enmeshment with pain. Statistically significant group differences were also observed for acceptance of pain following the intervention. Finally, a mediational model in which changes in activity engagement (a form of pain acceptance) served as the mediator of the relationship between treatment group and changes in schema-enmeshment with FMS was tested. The model was tested using a bootstrapping method, and results revealed a trend toward a significant indirect effect of changes in activity engagement leading to changes in schema-enmeshment with FMS. Taken together, the results of this study indicate that ACT may be a promising intervention for targeting maladaptive beliefs about the self in relation to illness, especially schema-enmeshment of self with illness and illness symptoms. Additionally, there is evidence that ACT may target key constructs such as activity engagement, which may be related to other cognitive and behavioral changes. Future directions for research and clinical practice related to ACT as an intervention for FMS are discussed in depth.