The main aim of the present research was to determine the effectiveness of biofeedback-aided relaxation training (BFRT) for alleviating symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress for undergraduate students as they prepared for their final examinations. In a randomized controlled trial design, 29 male and female students, with heightened levels of depression, anxiety and stress scores on the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale, were chosen and randomly assigned to BFRT or a no-treatment control condition. Subjects assigned to BFRT received eight sessions of BFRT spaced over 4 weeks, during which they were trained to decrease electromyography (EMG) and respiration rate (RESP) and to increase skin temperature (TEMP). Data were extracted and analyzed by GLM statistical analysis. Students receiving BFRT revealed significant reductions in symptoms when compared to the untreated controls. Those receiving BFRT also showed significant changes for the three targeted psychophysiological modalities (EMG, RESP, and TEMP). It was concluded that BFRT can be useful for reducing symptoms of emotional disturbance in undergraduate students during a particularly stressful period and that this may, in turn, help promote overall psychological health.
Several psychotherapy models for borderline personality disorder (BPD) have demonstrated efficacy in randomized controlled trials (RCT). However, these treatment models were developed in Western countries and have seldom been evaluated in non-Western countries, such as Iran. Dynamic deconstructive psychotherapy (DDP) is a weekly individual psychotherapy that has demonstrated efficacy in clinical trials, but its efficacy has never been tested by an independent research group outside of the United States.In the present study, 30 participants diagnosed with BPD were randomly assigned to either 12 months of DDP, or to enhanced usual care (EUC), and then followed naturalistically for an additional 3 months. The primary outcome was symptom severity of borderline personality disorder. Secondary outcomes included maturity of object relations, level of personality organization, and depressive symptom severity. Results indicated that in the intent-to-treat sample, participants receiving DDP demonstrated a large and statistically significant reduction in BPD symptom severity relative to those receiving EUC. The difference in outcome was sustained after ending treatment during the naturalistic follow-up period. Improvement in BPD severity from beginning DDP to follow-up was nearly two standard deviations (d = 1.93), with 80% retention. DDP demonstrated medium to large effects on improvement of secondary outcomes. The results of this study suggest that this therapeutic model may effect changes in both symptoms and personality structure that are sustained over time, and may be used for individuals across different cultures, backgrounds, and languages.
Dynamic Deconstructive Psychotherapy has used neuroscience findings to propose the specific neuroaffective deficits in processing of the emotion experiences as etiology of the borderline personality disorder. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the Dynamic Deconstructive Psychotherapy to improve the symptoms in patients diagnosed with the borderline personality disorder by remediation of neuro-affective defects. This study was designed as a randomized controlled trial using the pre-test, post-test and a control group. Thirty patients who were diagnosed with borderline personality disorder meeting the inclusion criteria, randomly divided into two groups. Both groups evaluated using both Borderline Evaluation of Severity over Time (BEST) and Patient Health Questionnaire Mood Scale (PHQ-9) questionnaires at the baseline and the over course of the treatment. Data analysis using repeated measures ANOVA indicated that the effect of measuring time (p=0.001) and time/group (p=0.010) on linear combination of the severity of borderline disorder and depression were significant. This result supports the efficacy of Dynamic Deconstructive Psychotherapy based on the neurocognitive remediation of the emotion processing using association, attribution and alterity techniques.
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