Early memories in social anxiety: A meaningful and enduring collaboration with my Dad

2023

Perspect Psychol Sci

Self Cite

Negative schemas lie at the core of many common and debilitating mental disorders. Thus, intervention scientists and clinicians have long recognized the importance of designing effective interventions that target schema change. Here, we suggest that the optimal development and administration of such interventions can benefit from a framework outlining how schema change occurs in the brain. Guided by basic neuroscientific findings, we provide a memory-based neurocognitive framework for conceptualizing how schemas emerge and change over time and how they can be modified during psychological treatment of clinical disorders. We highlight the critical roles of the hippocampus, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and posterior neocortex in directing schema-congruent and -incongruent learning (SCIL) in the interactive neural network that comprises the autobiographical memory system. We then use this framework, which we call the SCIL model, to derive new insights about the optimal design features of clinical interventions that aim to strengthen or weaken schema-based knowledge through the core processes of episodic mental simulation and prediction error. Finally, we examine clinical applications of the SCIL model to schema-change interventions in psychotherapy and provide cognitive-behavior therapy for social anxiety disorder as an illustrative example.

Section: Applications Of Neural Model To Schema-change Interventions ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Negative Self-perception Self-imagery and Autobiographical M...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurocognitive Model of Schema-Congruent and -Incongruent Learning in Clinical Disorders: Application to Social Anxiety and Beyond

2023

Perspect Psychol Sci

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“…Negative images are often rooted in distressing autobiographical memories in which the themes of recollected events evoke central features of each specific disorder (Hirsch & Holmes, 2007; Holmes, Geddes, Colom, & Goodwin, 2008; Romano, Ma, Moscovitch, & Moscovitch, In Press). In SAD, it is common for individuals to experience distressing images of themselves appearing socially inept and undesirable and to associate the formation of such images with past experiences of perceived social failure or humiliation (Moscovitch, 2016; Moscovitch et al, 2018). Despite being excessively negative and distorted, these images of the self are believed by socially anxious individuals to represent accurate portrayals of how they appear to others (Hackmann, Clark, & McManus, 2000; Moscovitch, Gavric, Merrifield, Bielak, & Moscovitch, 2011; Stopa & Bryant, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coping with negative mental images in social anxiety disorder: Investigating the potential benefits of image morphing

Vidovic

Romano

Journal of Experimental Psychopathology

2019

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Negative mental imagery contributes to symptom maintenance in social anxiety disorder (SAD). Here, we investigated the effects of image morphing, a brief mental strategy designed to facilitate access to positive images. Participants with SAD and healthy control (HC) participants were randomly assigned to receive either image morphing or supportive counseling. Although initial training and 1-week daily practice were successful in equipping morphing participants across groups with the required skill, those assigned to morphing failed to demonstrate differential improvements in positive affect, negative affect, or selfperception relative to control participants during a subsequent social stress task. Ancillary analyses revealed that the number of positive details contained in retrieved or morphed images prior to the task significantly predicted the level of positive affect reported after the task, but this effect was observed only for HC participants. We discuss the need for future research to refine innovative imagery-based psychotherapeutic strategies for social anxiety.

Autobiographical memory retrieval and appraisal in social anxiety disorder

Behaviour Research and Therapy

Vidovic

Lenton-Brym

et al. 2018

Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SADs; n = 41) and healthy controls (HCs; n = 40) were administered the Waterloo Images and Memories Interview, in which they described mental images that they tend to experience in both anxiety-provoking and non-anxiety-provoking social situations. Participants then recalled, in as much detail as possible, specific autobiographical memories of salient aversive and non-aversive social experiences that they believed led to the formation of these images. Audio-recorded memory narratives were transcribed and coded based on the procedure of the Autobiographical Interview, which provides a precise measure of the degree of episodic detail contained within each memory. Participants also rated the subjective properties of their recalled memories. Results revealed that participants across the two groups retrieved equivalent rates of both aversive and non-aversive social memories. However, SAD participants' memories of aversive events contained significantly more episodic detail than those of HCs, suggesting that they may be more highly accessible. Moreover, participants with SAD appraised their memories of aversive experiences as more distressing and intrusive than HCs, and perceived them as having a significantly greater influence on their self-perception. In contrast, no group differences were observed for memories of non-aversive events. Findings have the potential to shed new light on autobiographical memory in SAD, with implications for psychotherapeutic intervention.