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No description available.

This study examines the effects of hope and mindfulness on the relationship between life experiences and resilience, as well as the direct relationships among these constructs. Participants were 537 undergraduates who were taking online courses at Texas A&M University. Most participants were traditionally-aged and female. Quantitative self-report measures for each construct were administered online via SurveyMonkey. The small, positive relationship between life events and resilience approached, but did not reach, statistical significance, and hope but not mindfulness was found to moderate this relationship. Correlations were significant, positive, and linear between resilience and hope (r = .57, p < .01), resilience and mindfulness (r = .50, p less than .01), and hope and mindfulness (r = .44, p less than .01). Suggestions for clinical interventions aimed at increasing resilience by increasing hope and mindfulness are provided

Major Depression (MD) currently affects over 17 million individuals in North America (Greenberg et al., 2003). Identifying factors predictive of MD treatment response is important for developing more efficacious treatments and better understanding MD vulnerability. The goal of the present study was to examine the main and interactive effects of personality and stressful life events as predictors of MD treatment response. One hundred and thirty-one clinically depressed participants were randomly assigned to either 16-weeks of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), or pharmacotherapy (PT). Personality in the form of trait self-criticism, neediness, and connectedness was assessed at pre and post-treatment using the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ; Blatt et al., 1976). Stressful life events experienced during treatment were assessed using the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule (LEDS; Bifulco et al., 1989). Results revealed that amongst individuals scoring lower in pre-treatment self-criticism, higher pre-treatment connectedness predicted superior treatment response. As well, amongst individuals scoring lower in pre-treatment neediness, higher pre-treatment connectedness predicted superior treatment response. In terms of personality change, both a reduction in neediness and a reduction in self-criticism over the course of treatment predicted superior treatment response. A personality × stressful life event interaction was also found such that amongst those experiencing a stressful life event during treatment, higher scores on pre-treatment self-criticism predicted poor treatment response. These results suggest that personality and stressful life events play an important role in the treatment of MD. Limitations and clinical implications are discussed. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-28 12:08:15.84

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No description available.

In the present study, we examined loneliness and negative life events as predictors of suicide risk (viz., hopelessness and suicidal behaviors) in a sample of 160 Hispanic adults. Consistent with expectations, we found loneliness and negative life events to be positively associated with both hopelessness and suicidal behaviors. In addition, results of conducting hierarchical regression analyses indicated that loneliness accounted for significant amounts of variance in both measures of suicide risk, ranging from 24% to 29% of the variance. The inclusion of negative life events as a predictor was found to account for additional unique variance in hopelessness (3%), but not in suicidal behaviors, beyond what was predicted by loneliness. Finally, consistent with a diathesis-stress model, the Loneliness × Negative Life Events interaction was found to account for an additional 3% of the variance in both suicide risk measures. Implications of the present findings for future research on suicide risk in Hispanics are discussed.

Epidemiological studies indicate that between 8 and 20% of children suffer from an anxiety disorder (Costello, Egger, & Angold, 2004). Researchers have worked for many years to map the developmental trajectory of anxiety in children, yet the pathways remain unclear. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between specific predictors and anxiety in middle school Caucasian and African American adolescents. A secondary purpose was to explore whether acculturation contributes to the prediction of anxiety, after controlling for exposure to negative life events, in the African American adolescents. For the total sample, results indicated that negative life events, social support, coping, and ethnicity were all significant predictors of anxiety, accounting for 18.9% of the variance in anxiety scores. These relationships were confirmed in separate analyses for the African American and Caucasian youth. Furthermore, acculturation moderated the relationship between negative life events and anxiety in the African American sample, as anticipated. More specifically, the relationship between negative life events and anxiety was stronger for those adolescents reporting more affiliation with their own culture. These findings suggest that culture is an important context in understanding the development of anxiety and that it requires additional exploration to understand its relations to the development of mental health problems more broadly. / Master of Science

There has been an abundance of studies that have adopted positivist approaches, employing quantitative methods, to research OCD 'symptoms' and their underlying neurobiology and neurochemistry. There appears to be a lack of research investigating how OCD is experienced by those living with the diagnosis, and in particular the experiences of young people diagnosed with OCD. Ten young people, aged 14-17 years old, with a diagnosis of OCD were recruited from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). The young people were interviewed and a Thematic Analysis (TA) was used to analyse data. Four themes were developed through the analysis. The first theme 'Traumatic and stressful life events' found that 9 out of the 10 participants experienced at least one of the following three life events just prior to the development of their OCD: 'Hostility in the family', 'Illness and death', 'Bullying and friendlessness'. Four subthemes, 'Lack of understanding of the behaviour', 'Being secretive', 'I thought I was going crazy', and 'Feeling different', provided a richer understanding to the theme 'Responses to signs of OCD'. The four subthemes 'Feeling "right"', 'I was taking on all the responsibility', 'It's ruined everything', 'Everyday life is now in my bedroom' explored the third theme 'The battle of living with OCD'. The last theme 'Ambivalent relationship to help' described the conflict that most participants had over exposure therapy and accommodation of their OCD. Lastly, most participants felt the long waiting time for help was frustrating. The theme is fully explored by the following three subthemes: 'Conflicts of exposure therapy', 'Conflicts about accommodation of the OCD', and 'Frustrations of long waiting lists'. The themes that emerged may provide important information for clinicians and the implications of the research findings are discussed. The strengths and limitations of the study are noted and there are suggestions for future research.

This doctoral dissertation examine the specific role of the self-concept and of its different dimensions on the evolution of anorexic symptoms over a period of 140 consecutive days. in two different samples comprising 26 anorexic outpatients and inpatients and in 23 girls without eating disorders (ED). By applying an idiographic approach, the main results show that the level, instability and dynamic of self-concept dimensions, and more precisely of body attractiveness, represent potent predictors of psychological, behavioral (e.g. full score of Eating Disorders Inventory-Adolescent, EDI-A-24) and somatic (e.g. Body Mass Index, BMI) anorexic symptoms over medium (i.e. over a few months), short (i.e. over a few weeks) and very short (i.e. over a few days) periods of time. Moreover, multivariate regression analyses further show that the pattern of association between anorexic symptoms and self concept dimensions remains the same in both samples (anorexic and without ED). Moreover, the results of cross-correlations analyses reveal that anorexic symptoms are as unstable as the dimensions of self-concept, with which they appear to be intertwined. More precisely, body attractiveness, most often a) precedes the drive for thinness, b) is associated to bulimia according to a"vicious circle" phenomenon, and c) fluctuates with according to body dissatisfaction. However body attractiveness was not found to relate to anorexic girls final status at the end of the follow-up period (e.g. deterioration, improvement, stabilization, etc). Finally, the results from a qualitative analysis suggest that social events experienced as positive contribute to the improvement of anorexia nervosa.This appears to be explained by the potential of these events to break through anorectic girls known ego-centered tendencies. Taken as a whole, the 'results highlight the necessity of considering overall of dimensions of self-esteem and the"profiles" of girls with and without ED in preventive and therapeutic interventions for ED.