Doctorate in Clinical Psychology: Main Research Portfolio

: 1) Compassion-focused therapy for trauma in people with learning disabilities: a conceptual review; 2) How stroke patients and carers experience an early supported discharge service: service improvement driven by service-user perspectives; 3) An experimental investigation into the effect of state-anxiety on state-paranoia in people experiencing psychosis.

Abstract

Background and Objectives: The threat-anticipation model of paranoia suggests that a number of factors interact to form and maintain paranoia, with anxiety playing a key role. There is strong evidence to suggest that anxiety is associated with paranoia in clinical and non-clinical samples. However, no research to date has directly manipulated anxiety to investigate if state-anxiety has a causal role in state-paranoia in clinical populations. Methods: 22 participants with a psychosis-spectrum diagnosis took part in a repeatedmeasures, experimental, cross-over design. Participants took part in a neutral-mood and an anxious-mood induction with levels of state-anxiety, state-affect and state-paranoia being measured before and after each condition. Results: State-paranoia was significantly higher after the anxious condition compared to the neutral condition. State-anxiety and state-paranoia were significant predictors of levels of state-paranoia after the anxious condition. When both predictors were included in a regression model, only negative-affect was a significant predictor of state-paranoia after the anxious condition. Limitations: There were a number of methodological limitations that are outlined in the discussion. Conclusions: State-anxiety and negative-affect may both be involved in the maintenance of paranoia in clinical populations, as predicted by the threat-anticipation model. However, negative-affect may be more important in state-paranoia than state-anxiety in clinical populations. Interventions that seek to reduce state-affect may be beneficial in managing state-paranoia. Further research is warranted to explore the suggested clinical and theoretical implications of these findings.

Date of Award	18 Sept 2017
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Lorna Hogg (Supervisor) & Cathy Randle-Phillips (Supervisor)