Project

Improving psychological intervention development through microtrials

Code
bof/baf/4y/2024/01/743
Duration
01 January 2024 → 31 December 2025
Funding
Regional and community funding: Special Research Fund
Research disciplines
  • Social sciences
    • Psychopathology
    • Psychotherapy
Keywords
microtrials psychotherapy causality active ingredients
 
Project description

Understanding mechanisms of action of psychological interventions is key to understanding causal processes related to improvement of functioning. In general, many psychological interventions are composed of a multitude of ingredients that are administered across different sessions. Unfortunately, this complicates understanding which mechanisms are crucial for change. In the current project we propose to investigate whether studying mechanisms of change through so-called "microtrials" is helpful in better understanding key mechanisms of therapeutic change. In microtrials we try to isolate core components of treatments and study their effects in isolation within a shorter timeframe. This approach will be applied in the context of understanding the use of imagery in treating unwanted memories and in testing the effects of attention feedback in tolerating uncertainity.