Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic, debilitating skin disorder that accounts for up to 20% of dermatological diagnoses. A 6-week psychoeducational stress management program was developed, implemented, and evaluated as an adjunctive treatment for AD. The participants (n = 17) were randomly assigned to a treatment or waiting-list control group. Participants in both the intervention and waiting-list control groups were assessed for dermatitis severity by a blind rater both pre and posttreatment and at a follow-up conducted 8 weeks after the conclusion of the program. At posttest the intervention group had significantly reduced pruritus and global severity of atopic dermatitis, and reduced levels of social anxiety and private self-consciousness. At an 8-week follow-up, pruritus was entirely absent and global severity was continuing to decrease, as were levels of social anxiety and private self-consciousness. The psychoeducational stress-management program provided a short effective treatment that resulted in reduction of symptoms and provided long-term management strategies to sufferers of atopic dermatitis.

The present study describes the outcomes of a manualised treatment for generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) in female adolescents that combined traditional cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) with an interpersonal skills (IP) component. The CBT component included psychoeducation, somatic management, cognitive restructuring, exposure therapy and problem-solving. The IP component targeted interpersonal avoidance, passive and aggressive interpersonal styles, and co-rumination. Four female adolescents with a principal diagnosis of GAD participated in 10 weekly 1-hour sessions. Adolescent- and parent-report diagnostic interviews and questionnaires were completed at pre-, mid-, and posttreatment, and at 3-months follow-up. Reductions in GAD and depressive symptoms and improvements in interpersonal functioning for all participants on both adolescent- and parent-report measures suggest that the combination of CBT and IP can benefit adolescent girls with GAD.

Homicides are committed by a diverse array of individuals in all sectors of society for many different reasons. Any successful theory of homicide will have sufficient scope to encompass this diversity. Researchers in the fields of drunk driving and sexual offending have developed descriptive theories, using grounded theory approaches, which show promise in outlining the diversity of offence processes in these areas. This study uses a grounded theory approach to develop a descriptive multi-pathway model of the homicide process. The resulting model consists of three distinct phases and provides a fine grained description of the homicide process. A major finding is that individuals vary in terms of their goals, emotional states, degree of planning, and behaviour throughout the different phases of the model. Finally, the clinical and theoretical implications of the study are briefly discussed.

Four adult, moderately intellectually handicapped persons who lived independently in the community were trained in safe exiting from their bedrooms in the event of fire. Baseline levels of competence were low, typically less than 20% of steps correct. Training was introduced to each trainee following a multiple probe across subjects design. Failures to complete a step were followed by video prompting in which the trainee watched a video of a model (an intellectually handicapped male) demonstrate the correct performance of the step. Acquisition required at most 10 sessions, the skills transferred to another residence and to the trainee's bedroom, and were maintained at 5 weeks.

Development and maintenance of mental health is a major requirement for successful adolescent transition. During this critical process of change, when many mental health concerns first manifest, it has been suggested that positive leisure experiences provide opportunities that support and promote adolescent development and mental health. This investigation examined the relationship between leisure and mental health in an adolescent population. Based on an extensive literature review and analysis of focus-group interviews with 130 adolescents, it was hypothesised that self-efficacy, competence, and self-worth act as mediators between leisure and mental health. Measures of leisure, mental health, and the three intervening factors were collected from a total sample of 850 adolescents aged from 12 to 18 years. Structural equation modelling was used to investigate the interrelationships of the variables and for testing the goodness-of-fit of the hypothesised model. Results suggest that some forms of positive leisure involvement, namely achievement-oriented leisure (which provides challenges and a range of demands), and social leisure, do significantly influence mental health through the identified intervening factors. The construct of competence, in particular, formed a crucial link in the model. However, the third type of leisure, time-out leisure (which typically involves solitary activities such as lying on one's bed and reflecting, or watching television), demonstrated a significant but negative association with mental health. These outcomes provide some guidelines for facilitating and promoting mental health through leisure in adolescence.

This paper describes some of the current problems with the assessment of children's anxiety. The main assessment methods — structured clinical interview and self-report — often have problems with validity and reliability while less frequently used measures such as physiological recording, behavioural observation, and thought-listing also have their attendant difficulties. Possible ways of reducing some of these problems using a developmental perspective are discussed.

Cognitive-behavioural interventions developed from a variety of theoretical orientations have been demonstrated to be safe and effective treatments for unipolar depression. In this article, one specific intervention is described: the Coping With Depression (CWD) Course, a multi-modal group psychoeducational treatment. The theoretical rationale and development of the CWD Course is reviewed, as well as the specific course content. Evidence for the efficacy of the CWD Course is presented and discussed. Also described are several modifications of the CWD Course, developed for use with special populations such as depressed adolescents, caretakers of frail elderly, health-impaired Native Americans, and English and Spanish-speaking medical outpatients. Future research and development directions for the CWD Course are examined, including replication of outcome results, generalization to real-life clinical settings and to diagnostically co-morbid populations, and the prevention of depression among individuals at elevated risk of affective disorder.

Behaviour therapists have always been optimists, and interdisciplinary involvement is a strong tradition in the behaviour therapy movement. While this increases the potential application of behavioural methods, it poses a substantial challenge for behaviour therapy trainers. This paper contends that if brief workshop training is used as the primary method of disseminating behaviour therapy skills across professions, it will provide an inadequate preparation, especially for higher levels of behavioural practice. In some circumstances, brief training may lead to an overestimation of behavioural skills by the trainees. The issues are discussed in the context of current moves toward multiskilling within health services. The paper contends that there is no substitute for ongoing training and consultation by senior clinical psychologists who are expert in behaviour therapy.

Studies on the efficacy of parent training programs have mostly been conducted with preadolescents, with only a few studies investigating family treatment models in adolescents. In this article, a study is described that evaluates Standard Teen Triple P (Positive Parenting Program), a behavioural family intervention for parents of 11- to 16-year-old teenagers. Participants were 46 families with a teenager who was experiencing detectable behavioural and emotional problems. Compared to parents in the waitlist control condition, parents participating in the intervention condition reported decreased levels of teen disruptive behaviours and parent adolescent conflict, as well as a reduction in the use of ineffective parenting strategies and conflict over child-rearing issues. These positive changes were maintained at the 3-month follow-up. Results suggest that Standard Teen Triple P is a promising parenting intervention for tackling adolescent externalising problems.

Test anxiety in children has long been recognised to be a significant and challenging educational problem. Recent advances in diagnostic interviewing, cognitive assessment, and physiological recording have facilitated a considerable amount of research on test-anxious youth. This research has yielded important clinical insights about test-anxious children and adolescents of interest to teachers and psychologists. We describe and evaluate the findings of these investigations. Finally, we discuss the implications of the research findings for intervention in school settings. Cognitive-behavioural strategies are tentatively recommended for the treatment of test-anxious children and adolescents.

The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between psychological wellbeing and Internet use among adolescents, focussing not only on time spent on the Internet, but also on the relative strength/importance of both face-to-face and Internet friendship networks. A sample of 336 young people aged between 15 and 21 years from a secondary school and a university population were surveyed. Results indicated that females with more online friends were higher on selfesteem and lower on loneliness than females with fewer online friends, but the opposite was true for males. A higher number of online regular friendships seemed to militate against self-esteem and was related to greater loneliness for males. For face-to-face friendships, the effects on wellbeing were in the same direction for males and females, but stronger for males. Those with more face-to-face friendships were higher on self-esteem and less lonely. In addition, young men who rated their online friendship networks as very important were more likely to have lower self-esteem and to be lonely. Actual time spent on the Internet was not a predictor of wellbeing for either sex when online and offline friendship factors were included in the regression equation.

Behavioural family intervention (BFI) as a treatment approach emphasises the importance of family interaction patterns in the origins, maintenance, and treatment of child behaviour problems. The BFI Field can document substantial contributions to the development of more effective treatments with children, particularly those with conduct problems. Furthermore, this approach is now being applied to new areas with encouraging results (eg. pain, chronic health problems, anxiety disorders, and learning difficulties). There is increasing evidence that this technology is not a panacea and that good clinical outcomes can be difficult to achieve when children's problems are complicated by other indices of family adversity (eg. marital discord, maternal depression, alcohol abuse, or poverty). This special issue of Behaviour Change documents recent developments in BFI which attempt to improve outcomes with high risk groups. Applications of BFI with depressed and marital distressed parents and with children who are developmentally disabled, anxious, or have learning difficulties, are discussed. Finally, the issue points towards the use of BFI as a strategy for preventing disruptive behavioural disorders in children.

Objective: To provide a quantitative assessment of the literature examining the cross-sectional association between loneliness and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents. Method: A total of 44 studies from 35 articles (n = 27, 214; mean age 13.63 years; 51% female) met inclusion criteria. Results: A medium, positive correlation between loneliness and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents was found (r = .48). Age and gender did not moderate the relationship between loneliness and depressive symptoms. Conclusion: Loneliness may be a particular risk factor for depression. These results have implications for COVID-19 disease containment measures.

Studies examining the musical mood induction procedure (MMIP) currently typically involve the experimenter preselecting a piece of music for use with all subjects. This assumes that the same piece of music will be equally effective at eliciting low mood for all subjects. The validity of this assumption was evaluated among 12 bulimic and 12 control women. Subjects listened to seven preselected pieces of music and rated them according to how likely it would be that the piece of music would help them to lower their mood / feel sad. Analysis showed that subjects were highly individual in their responses, and that it could not be assumed that the same piece of music would be equally effective at eliciting low mood across subjects.

Feeding problems that can lead to associated nutritionally related medical conditions and often cause stress and difficulties for parents are prevalent in children with autism. It is therefore important to target these problem behaviours through effective interventions. The present study was designed to trial a procedure comprised of escape extinction combined with positive reinforcement with the aim to reduce food refusals and increase eating in a child with autism. It was predicted that the intervention package would significantly reduce food refusals and increase eating and that any increase in food acceptance would be maintained and generalised to other behaviours related to feeding on termination of the intervention. The research design was a multiple baseline across settings. The results confirmed our predictions. It was concluded that the treatment package was effective at increasing food acceptance.

The current study examined the effects of the “anti-monster letter” as a simple tool for reducing night-time fears in young children. One hundred and forty-two children aged 4 to 6 years were randomly assigned to either an experimental condition in which children and parents were provided with an “anti-monster letter” or a control condition in which no intervention was carried out. Results indicated that the “anti-monster letter” yielded positive effects. That is, child report data showed that night-time fears substantially decreased in the intervention condition as compared with the control condition. In parents, such positive effects could not be substantiated by standardised assessments, although some parents indicated that they considered the intervention as helpful.

The aim of the study was to determine if heart rate (HR) and skin conductance increase as a result of worrying and if the increase is greater in worriers than in non-worriers. Ten self-labelled worriers and 10 self-labelled non-worriers were individually interviewed, and a worrying event and a pleasant event were determined for each. The HR and skin resistance were then measured for all subjects when they were calm and quiet, when they imagined a worrying event, and when they imagined a pleasant event. There was no difference in the HR and skin conductance of worriers and non-worriers across the three conditions, namely, baseline, imagination of a worrying event and imagination of a pleasant event. Heart rate increased only as a result of worrying whereas the skin conductance increased both due to worrying and due to the imagination of the pleasant event. The results suggest that HR may be used as a measure of worrying.

This study examined the impact and side effects of a cognitive behavioural program for the treatment of recurrent abdominal pain (R.A.P.) on children's behavioural adjustment and family functioning. It assessed the extent to which changes in children's pain symptoms covaried with family processes thought to be etiologically significant in cases of R.A.P. Results showed that pain symptoms of both experimental and control children improved significantly six months after initial assessment. Treatment achieved its objectives more quickly with a higher proportion of completely pain-free children. None of the measures of child adjustment or family conflict, expressiveness, independence or achievement orientation were associated with changes in pain intensity ratings or parent observational measures of pain behaviour. There was no evidence that treatment was associated with any negative side effects.

Randomised controlled outcome studies have demonstrated the efficacy of imaginal desensitisation in inpatient settings. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a prerecorded audiocassette version of the imaginal desensitisation procedure that was designed for home-based use in reducing gambling urges and behaviours on a sample of diagnosed pathological gamblers who sought treatment at a university teaching hospital at 2-month follow-up. Pretreatment to 2-month follow-up repeated measures revealed a significant reduction in visual analogue scale ratings of urge, preoccupation and perceived self-control over gambling; indices of actual gambling behaviour; and psychometric measures of anxiety, depression and impulsivity. A prerecorded audiocassette version of imaginal desensitisation for home use represents a cost-effective approach in the management of pathological gambling.

The clinical literature has long acknowledged the paradoxical findings that deliberate attempts to suppress particular thoughts actually increase their occurrence. The unwanted, intrusive thoughts that are a major feature of obsessive disorders, depression, sleep disorders, and a range of other disturbances are of particular clinical concern. The exploration of psychological factors associated with cognitive control is, therefore, clinically relevant. The present paper considers the role of mental control and thought suppression in bulimia nervosa in explaining the occurrence of unwanted thoughts and feelings, specifically in relation to weight, shape, and food. Our fundamental argument is that suppression of thoughts of food, weight, and body shape can lead to the increased frequency of these thoughts. The increase in unwanted thoughts is likely to result in a loss of control over eating, and lead to the escalation and perpetuation of bulimia. Dietary restriction is likely to be associated with successful suppression, and binge-eating with failed suppression. Indeed, the initial success of suppression paradoxically causes its inevitable failure. We conclude that the suppression of thoughts of food and weight or shape in bulimia nervosa is maladaptive and counterproductive. In addition, the therapeutic implications of thought suppression are considered.