No abstract

Misophonia is a condition of unknown cause characterized by atypically intense negative physiological and emotional reactions to hearing certain sounds – most often those associated with oral functions. Individuals with misophonia often report high levels of psychological distress and avoidance behaviours that seriously compromise their occupational and social functioning. As of yet, no effective treatment of misophonia has been identified, and health care providers often struggle when they encounter clients who have it. This case report describes the assessment, case formulation, and treatment of a client with misophonia using cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), and serves as an initial contribution to the evidence base for the efficacy of CBT in the treatment of misophonia.

This study investigated the effects of dispositional and experimentally induced perspective-taking (PT) on physiological attunement between romantic partners during a conflict resolution task. Young adult couples (N = 103 dyads) rated their trait PT 1 week prior to participating in a conflict resolution session with their romantic partner. Immediately before the conflict task, participants were given one of the following three instructions: to take their partner’s perspective (PT condition), to approach the conflict mindfully (mindfulness condition), or to focus on their own perspective regarding the conflict (control condition). Participants provided four saliva samples over the course of the laboratory session, and the samples were assayed for alpha-amylase to measure autonomic nervous system activity. Multilevel modeling results revealed that couples in the PT condition displayed greater autonomic attunement over the course of the conflict session compared to those in the other conditions. In addition, female partners’ dispositional PT enhanced the effect of the PT induction on couples’ attunement. Furthermore, secondary analyses provided support for the beneficial role of autonomic attunement. Specifically, attunement was decreased by negative conflict behaviors and predicted increased post-conflict negative affect in females. Implications for dyadic functioning and intervention are discussed.

Betrayal trauma theory (Freyd, 1994, 1996) proposes that traumas high in social betrayal are expected to lead to psychological outcomes of dissociation, amnesia, and/or shame because these responses are adaptive to a survivor trying to preserve a necessary relationship in the face of mistreatment. Within the field of trauma studies more generally, there is substantial support for the proposition that traumas that cause intense fear should lead to posttraumatic anxiety and hypervigilance. Despite ample evidence for both theorized causal pathways, very few studies have tested associations between betrayal exposure, hypervigilance, and dissociation. The current study had 2 aims: first, as no self-report measure of hypervigilance had been developed for nonveteran populations, we sought to identify a subset of Hypervigilance Questionnaire (Knight, 1993) items that validly and reliably measure hypervigilance within college undergraduates (n = 489; 62.6% female, 69.9% Caucasian) with and without elevated levels of posttraumatic stress. Second, we tested the associations among trauma history, hypervigilance, and dissociation. Psychometric analyses revealed 5 hypervigilance items we introduce as the Brief Hypervigilance Scale. Partial correlations revealed that each posttraumatic response was not related to a history of low betrayal trauma (i.e. non-interpersonal trauma) controlling for betrayal trauma (i.e. interpersonal trauma), but was related to betrayal trauma controlling for low betrayal trauma. These associations remained significant after controlling for the other posttraumatic response (i.e. hypervigilance or dissociation). Follow-up analyses revealed that hypervigilance was independently associated with adult, but not child high betrayal trauma, and the opposite was true for dissociation. Implications for theory, research, and clinical practice are discussed.

Adult attachment avoidance has long been associated with relationship turmoil and dissatisfaction, and some research has highlighted the clinical potential of perspective-taking (PT) training for ameliorating attachment avoidance-related relationship difficulties. Prior research also suggests that prosocial sequelae of PT are mediated by increased self-other overlap. This study examined how a brief PT induction preceding an unresolved conflict discussion interacted with individual differences in attachment avoidance to influence postconflict ratings of self-partner overlap. The authors found that the PT induction buffered the effect of partner -but not one's own-avoidance on self-partner overlap. Main effects of PT condition and both actor and partner avoidance were also detected, and results remained unchanged when controlling for indirect intracouple overlap and relevant individual and couple characteristics.Research over the past three decades has consistently demonstrated an inverse relation between romantic attachment avoidance (i.e., the extent to which individuals are uncomfortable with closeness, interdependence, and emotional intimacy) and relationship quality