Imagery rescripting with people with psychosis and social anxiety

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  An investigation into imagery rescripting with people with psychosis and social anxiety: A case series design

• IRAS ID

  147272

• Contact name

  David Heavens

• Contact email

  D.Heavens@uea.ac.uk

• Research summary

  Is imagery rescripting an effective intervention for people with psychosis and social anxiety?

  This study will investigate a therapeutic technique called 'imagery rescripting'. This will involve talking to an individual about their images and memories for past social events and working with them to try to make the images and memories less distressing. Previous research has shown that imagery rescripting is beneficial for a range of psychological problems including social anxiety (see Arntz (2012) for a review).
  
  There is a high rate of social anxiety in people with psychosis and this can have a negative effect on functioning and wellbeing. Despite this, there are few empirically tested interventions for social anxiety in people with psychosis. This study will investigate whether imagery rescripting is beneficial to those with psychosis and social anxiety. It is hoped that imagery rescripting will lead to a change in the way social images and memories are viewed and that this will lead to a decrease in social anxiety. It will also be investigated as to whether imagery rescripting leads to improvements in paranoia, psychotic symptoms, depression and social functioning.

  The study will recruit 12 participants from Early Intervention in Psychosis services in Norfolk. All participants will be 16 years or over. They will be randomly allocated to three conditions whereby they will complete assessments and start the intervention at different times. This will allow the study to show whether the imagery rescripting has been beneficial or not. By the end of the study, all participants will have receieved the full intervention. Each participant will be asked to provide approximately ten hours of their time, divided over seven different sessions.

• REC name

  London - Brent Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  14/LO/0330

• Date of REC Opinion

  3 Mar 2014

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion