The role of interoception in reducing trauma-associated distress: a feasibility study

Background: Altered interoception plays an important role in chronic stress and posttraumatic stress disorder. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of a Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TSY) intervention for improving emotional distress and psychological discomfort in women living under circumstances of social and gender vulnerability. We assessed the effect of the treatment on the interoceptive mechanisms, and whether the psychological improvements were mediated by the changes in these mechanisms.Methods: The study involved a sample of 62 women who attended public community centres dedicated to supporting women victims of gender-based violence or who were socially and economically disadvantaged because of their gender. Participants underwent a six-week TSY programme. We evaluated dropout rate, adherence, and intervention satisfaction. We measured emotional distress, psychological discomfort, interoceptive mechanisms, and two nonequivalent dependent variables to enhance internal validity. We compared pre-post differences using paired samples t-test and a structural equation model (SEM) analysis was performed to compare the changes in the outcomes with the changes in the nonequivalent dependent variables. Mediation models were adjusted to evaluate the role of changes in interoception on outcome changes.Results: Fourteen (23%) women dropped out, mainly after the first intervention session. Intervention adherence (mean attendance 5.3 over 6 sessions) and acceptability were high (mean satisfaction 3.4 over 4). We observed post-intervention improvements in anxiety, depression, psychological discomfort, body responsiveness, and interoceptive awareness. The changes in the outcomes were larger than the changes in the nonequivalent dependent variables. Additionally, we found that the changes in body responsiveness partially mediated the change in anxiety and psychological discomfort but not in depression.Conclusions: TSY could be an interesting therapeutic approach for women experiencing chronic posttraumatic stress symptomatology. Our findings underscore the role of interoceptive mechanisms in traumatic stress and emphasize the importance of addressing these aspects.

Characterizing affect dynamics with a damped linear oscillator model: Theoretical considerations and recommendations for individual-level applications

People show stable differences in the way their affect fluctuates over time. Within the general framework of dynamical systems, the damped linear oscillator (DLO) model has been proposed as a useful approach to study affect dynamics. The DLO model can be applied to repeated measures provided by a single individual, and the resulting parameters can capture relevant features of the person's affect dynamics. Focusing on negative affect, we provide an accessible interpretation of the DLO model parameters in terms of emotional lability, resilience, and vulnerability. We conducted a Monte Carlo study to test the DLO model performance under different empirically relevant conditions in terms of individual characteristics and sampling scheme. We used state-space models in continuous time. The results show that, under certain conditions, the DLO model is able to accurately and efficiently recover the parameters underlying the affective dynamics of a single individual. We discuss the results and the theoretical and practical implications of using this model, illustrate how to use it for studying psychological phenomena at the individual level, and provide specific recommendations on how to collect data for this purpose. We also provide a tutorial website and computer code in R to implement this approach. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Spanish Versions of the Outcome Rating Scale and the Session Rating Scale: Normative Data, Reliability, and Validity

Routine outcome monitoring (ROM) uses standardized measures to both track and inform mental health service delivery. Use of ROM has been shown to improve the outcome of psychotherapy when applied to different types of patients. The present research was designed to determine the reliability and validity of the Outcome Rating Scale (ORS) and the Session Rating Scale (SRS) in a sample of Spanish patients. After a controlled process of translation into the Spanish that is spoken and written in Spain (i.e., in Europe, as distinct from, e.g., Latin American Spanish), both measures were completed by patients of an outpatient mental health unit during eight sessions of psychotherapy. Sixty mental health patients filled out the ORS and 59 the SRS. In addition, the ORS was completed by 33 people who constituted the non-clinical sample. The cut-off of the ORS was 24.52 points, and the Reliable Change Index (RCI) was 9.15 points. ORS and SRS scores exhibited excellent internal consistency. The temporal stability of the SRS was adequate. The convergent and discriminant validity of the two measures were adequate. Regarding the factorial validity of the ORS and the SRS, in the third psychotherapy session, confirmatory factor analyses evidenced the existence of a unifactorial model. The predictive validity of SRS was acceptable. The ORS was sensitive to changes in patients’ symptoms. In conclusion, compared to the original English versions of the ORS and SRS measures, the Spanish versions of the measures are also reliable and valid.

Dynamical Properties and Conceptual Interpretation of Latent Change Score Models

Latent Change Score models (LCS) are a popular tool for the study of dynamics in longitudinal research. They represent processes in which the short-term dynamics have direct and indirect consequences on the long-term behavior of the system. However, this dual interpretation of the model parameters is usually overlooked in the literature, and researchers often find it difficult to see the connection between parameters and specific patterns of change. The goal of this paper is to provide a comprehensive examination of the meaning and interpretation of the parameters in LCS models. Importantly, we focus on their relation to the shape of the trajectories and explain how different specifications of the LCS model involve particular assumptions about the mechanisms of change. On a supplementary website, we present an interactive Shiny App that allows users to explore different sets of parameter values and examine their effects on the predicted trajectories. We also include fully explained code to estimate some of the most relevant specifications of the LCS model with the R-packages lavaan and OpenMx.