We hypothesized that the formation of malevolent introjects undermines the development of self-compassion, which in turn produces greater feelings of shame. We hypothesized that these feelings of shame account for concurrent depressive symptoms in adulthood. To test these hypotheses, we proposed a multiple mediator mediation model in which our independent variable was childhood maltreatment. We modeled child maltreatment as negatively predicting our first mediator, self-compassion, which in turn positively predicted internalized shame. We modeled internalized shame as positively predicting scores on our dependent variable, adult depressive symptoms. Participants were 158 adults fluent in English who were community members and college students living in a southwestern American metroplex. The model accounted for 61.8% of the variance in depressive symptoms in adulthood. A significant indirect effect from child maltreatment passed through both our mediators and ended in depressive symptoms in adulthood. We discuss limitations and theoretical and clinical implications, and future directions.

Alcohol consumption on college campuses is a major public health concern, particularly among emerging adults. Extant literature has identified trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress as robust risk factors for problematic alcohol use. However, the mechanisms underlying this association are less well-studied. Research indicates that bodily arousal is a fundamental feature of trauma exposure and posits that internal stimuli (e.g., heart pounding) at the time of trauma may manifest into conditioned cues that can trigger posttraumatic responding and related symptomatology, including alcohol use. However, past work supporting these assertions have used paradigms purposefully designed to evoke memories of the trauma, making it difficult to conclude whether the subsequent alcohol craving was due more to the explicit memory cue or the associated bodily arousal. The current study examined whether an implicit, trauma-relevant cue of bodily arousal (via hyperventilation) – independent of any explicit memory cue – would elicit increased desire to drink among 80 (Mage = 20.34; 63.8% female) trauma-exposed, emerging adult students. Results found no statistically significant difference in change in alcohol craving between the hyperventilation and control tasks. However, exploratory analyses indicated that trauma type (i.e., interpersonal/non-interpersonal) may moderate this relationship; more specifically, individuals reporting interpersonal trauma as their most …

This study examined the clinical utility of the recently released National Institute of Mental Health's (NIMH) research domain criteria (RDoC) by replicating and extending earlier work by using a demographically novel sample. Information retrieval and natural language processing of archival clinical records was used to achieve two main objectives: (1) estimate how well the RDoC domains match language used by clinicians by creating domain scores and (2) examine the differences between the DSM's and RDoC's ability to predict treatment outcome using these domain scores and DSM diagnoses. The social systems RDoC category was found to be the strongest predictor of treatment outcome across all diagnostic measures.

The current study examines interrelations among family factors in a sample of married couples with children in middle childhood. Specifically, this study tested the associations between parents' mental health, marital satisfaction, and provision of a secure base through emotional sensitivity to the child. We further explored bidirectional and moderation effects between spouses. Participants included 86 heterosexual couples residing in the North Texas community. Using the actor-partner interdependence model, multilevel modeling results indicated that both spouse's mental health symptomology and relationship satisfaction are linked to parent's self-perceived ability to provide a secure base; several gender effects were also found. Additionally, actor relationship satisfaction significantly moderated the association between actor mental health symptomology and secure-base provision. In the context of low actor satisfaction, as the actor's mental health symptomology increases, secure-base provision also increases; however, in the context of high actor satisfaction, as actor's mental health symptomology increases, secure-base provision decreases. Additionally, partner relationship satisfaction significantly moderated the association between partner mental health symptomology and actor secure-base provision. In the context of low partner satisfaction, as partner mental health symptomology increases, actor secure-base provision increases; however, in the context of high partner satisfaction, as partner mental health symptomology increases, actor secure-base provision …

This study evaluated a revised version of the Stress-Related Growth Scale (SRGS-R). The SRGS-R has two major differences from the Stress-Related Growth Scale (SRGS). It uses neutral wording of items instead of the original positively worded items, and it uses positive and negative scaling choices. This study included participants (N = 764) recruited through Amazon MTurk. There were three versions of the SRGS-R tested - the SRGS with neutral wording of items only (SRGS-R-N), the SRGS with positive and negative scaling only (SRGS-R-S), and the SRGS-R, with both changes. We randomly assigned participants to complete one of four PTG measures - the SRGS-R-N, SRGS-R-S, SRGS-R, or the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). The PTGI elicited the largest levels of reported PTG, while the SRGS-R elicited the smallest levels. The two modified versions displayed scores between the SRGS-R and the PTGI in the small and moderate growth groups. In the current study the SRGS-R was negatively related to PTSD symptoms, depression, anxiety (negative, but not statistically significant), global distress (negative, but not statistically significant), and avoidance-focused coping (negative, but not statistically significant), and positively related to positive well-being, quality of life, problem-focused coping, and emotion-focused coping. In comparison, the PTGI was unrelated …

This study examined a mediational model of mental illness stigma, parent-child communication about mental health concerns, and help seeking attitudes/behaviors among young adults with at least one immigrant parent while considering the possible moderating effect of acculturation gap. The primary goal of this study was to examine whether the acculturation gap changed the relation between mental illness stigma and communication about personal mental health concerns with immigrant parents, which in turn could become a significant predictor of their help-seeking attitudes, as well as a barrier to seeking professional mental health services. Findings provided support to the direct and indirect effects of mental illness stigma through communication about mental health concerns on attitudes about help-seeking. The acculturation gap hypothesized to be a possible moderator for the stigma-communication about mental health concerns relationship among young adult ABCI was found to be significant for ABCI with a low mainstream culture acculturation gap. Discussion on the findings, limitations of the study, future research directions, and counseling implications are addressed.

The present study aims to examine which maladaptive and Big Five personality traits, as well as which lower order facets, are related to symptoms specific to PTSD (i.e., intrusions and avoidance). Unique effects were isolated by controlling for nonspecific general depression that occurs in the disorder but is not specific to it. 707 undergraduate students were administered a self-report online survey to assess their personality, trauma history, PTSD and mood symptoms. Additionally, data from 536 9/11 World Trade Center (WTC) responders who have been administered personality, PTSD, and mood surveys as part of a longitudinal study were analyzed. As expected, neuroticism was highly correlated with PTSD, but had fewer associations with PTSD dimensions after controlling for depression. Trust and agreeableness emerged as important, being negatively related to PTSD, while most maladaptive personality domains and facets were positively related to PTSD (perceptual dysregulation had the highest association). Other traits, such as antagonism and openness, were not significantly related to PTSD. There is growing evidence that clinical interventions can change personality traits; the present study provides new personality targets for intervention that are uniquely related to PTSD.

Natural speech contains a wealth of information relevant to understanding cognitive and affective psychological processes, which are reflected in both prosodic and semantic channels of communication. While differences in semantic channels have been demonstrated among psychopathic versus non-psychopathic individuals, research on the role of prosody in psychopathy is scant. The Computerized Assessment of Natural Speech protocol provides adetailed assessment of macroscopic-level prosody variables related to underlying psychological processes that have been linked to psychopathological conditions. Psychopathy is a condition that involves a number of disruptions in cognitive and affective processes, which theoretically can be tied to various aspects of speech. The present study provides a novel contribution by examining natural speech output in an offender sample in the context of a clinical interview (Psychopathy Checklist – Revised). More specifically, the present study examined variance in prosody across segments of the PCL-R interview designed to elicit both positively and negatively valenced emotional content, across high and low levels of subjective arousal, in psychopathic (n = 49) and non-psychopathic (n = 44) male offenders who were similar in terms of age, education, race/ethnicity, and IQ. Three-factor mixed MANOVAs (Group x Valence x Arousal) were conducted to evaluate differences in prosodic speech displayed …

The sudden or violent death of a loved one (e.g., suicide, homicide, accident, etc.) poses unique challenges for the bereaved. Research has found such losses to be associated with higher levels of chronic psychological distress, now termed Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder in the DSM-5 and Prolonged Grief Disorder in the forthcoming ICD-11. The present study, developed through the lens of Multidimensional Grief Theory (MGT; Kaplow et al., 2013), explored underlying mechanisms and risk and protective factors for both prolonged grief and posttraumatic growth. With a mixed college and community sample of 374 traumatically bereaved adults, results of a path analysis suggest that insecure attachment strategies play a significant role in prolonged grief symptoms through the mediators of identity distress and shattered assumptions. Faced with the traumatic loss of a loved one, the ability and desire to effectively access relationships facilitating intentional processing that promotes cognitive reorganization is predicated on the bereaved's internal working model of attachment. Specifically, attachment anxiety in relation to close others and God, and attachment avoidance in relation to close others, were indirectly associated with prolonged grief. However, attachment avoidance in relation to God was negatively associated with both prolonged grief and posttraumatic growth, and there was …