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Clinical and theoretical relevance of responses to analogues of psychotic experiences in people with psychotic experiences with and without a need-for-care: an experimental study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2019

Thomas Ward Open the ORCID record for Thomas Ward [Opens in a new window] ,
Philippa. A Garety ,
Mike Jackson  and
Emmanuelle Peters
Thomas Ward*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
Philippa. A Garety
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK
Mike Jackson
Affiliation:
Bangor University, School of Psychology, North Wales, UK Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, North Wales, UK
Emmanuelle Peters
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK Psychological Interventions Clinic for Outpatients with Psychosis (PICuP), South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, LondonSE5 8AZ, UK
*
Author for correspondence: Thomas Ward, E-mail: thomas.ward@kcl.ac.uk
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Abstract

Background

Certain ways of responding to psychotic experiences (PEs) appear more commonly associated with clinical distress (e.g. avoidance) and other ways with benign or positive outcomes (e.g. reappraisal and acceptance). Past research has largely been limited to retrospective self-report. We aimed to compare clinical and non-clinical individuals on experimental analogues of anomalous experiences.

Method

Response styles of two groups with persistent PEs (clinical n = 84; non-clinical n = 92) and a control group without PEs (n = 83) were compared following experimental analogues of thought interference (Cards Task, Telepath) and hearing voices (Virtual Acoustic Space Paradigm).

Results

The non-clinical group with PEs were less likely to endorse unhelpful response styles, such as passive responding or attempts to avoid, suppress, worry about or control mental experiences, compared with the clinical group on all three tasks. The clinical group were more likely to endorse unhelpful response styles compared with controls on two out of three tasks (Cards Task and Telepath). The non-clinical group performed similarly to controls on unhelpful responding across all tasks. There were no group differences for helpful response styles, such as cognitive reappraisal or mindful acceptance of experiences.

Conclusions

In line with cognitive models of psychosis, the findings suggest that the way in which individuals respond to unusual experiences may be an important factor in understanding clinical distress, supporting the therapeutic rationale of targeting potentially unhelpful patterns of response.

Keywords

Cognitive models of psychosiscopingneed-for-carepsychotic experiencesresponse
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 50 , Issue 5 , April 2020 , pp. 761 - 770
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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