Weerkamp-Bartholomeus Paula, Marazziti Donatella, Chan Edward, Srivastava Ashutosh, van Amelsvoort Therese
Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
ReAttach Therapy International Foundation, Voerendaal, the Netherlands.
Heliyon. 2020 Aug 9;6(8):e04660. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04660. eCollection 2020 Aug.
Generally, neuropsychiatric patients share different symptoms across nosological categories, such as, amongst other, psychological distress, mood alterations, anxiety, and self-regulation disturbances.ReAttach is a novel psychological intervention with its key elements being external affect and arousal regulation, stimulation of multiple sensory processing, conceptualization, affective mentalization, and associative memory processing. ReAttach has been hypothesized to be effective in reducing symptom severity in different psychiatric conditions. Given the limited information currently available, the present study aimed to investigate the effect of main ReAttach elements called "Wiring Affect with ReAttach" (W.A.R.A.) on negative affect (N.A.), and to compare it with "Distraction," another well-established affect-regulating strategy.
We used a single-blind, randomized controlled crossover equivalence design to compare the efficacy on N.A. regulation of W.A.R.A. versus Distraction in 101 patients with different neuropsychiatric disorders.
The results showed a significant difference (p < 0.001) in response to W.A.R.A. vs. Distraction, with W.A.R.A. being significantly more effective in regulating N.A., with a large effect size (dRMpooled = 2.38) and a high probability (95%) of success.
The heterogeneity of the study population makes generalization and clear recommendations for specific patient groups difficult. The Numeric Rating Scale might have prevented detection of increased N.A. when the baseline scores were high. More in-depth research is needed to explore the W.A.R.A. technique and the extent of confounding variables such as the placebo effect.
The findings suggest that W.A.R.A. may be an effective, accessible, and brief intervention reducing negative affect. Although premature, these first results are encouraging.
一般来说，神经精神疾病患者在不同的疾病分类中存在不同症状，比如心理困扰、情绪改变、焦虑和自我调节障碍等。重新联结疗法（ReAttach）是一种新型心理干预方法，其关键要素包括外部情感与唤醒调节、多种感觉加工刺激、概念化、情感心智化和联想记忆加工。据推测，重新联结疗法在减轻不同精神疾病症状严重程度方面可能有效。鉴于目前可用信息有限，本研究旨在探究重新联结疗法中被称为“用重新联结疗法连接情感”（W.A.R.A.）的主要要素对消极情绪（N.A.）的影响，并将其与另一种成熟的情绪调节策略“分心”进行比较。
我们采用单盲、随机对照交叉等效性设计，比较W.A.R.A.与分心对101例不同神经精神疾病患者消极情绪调节的疗效。
结果显示，对W.A.R.A.与分心的反应存在显著差异（p < 0.001），W.A.R.A.在调节消极情绪方面显著更有效，效应量较大（合并dRM = 2.38）且成功概率较高（95%）。
研究人群的异质性使得难以对特定患者群体进行推广和给出明确建议。当基线分数较高时，数字评分量表可能会妨碍检测到消极情绪的增加。需要更深入的研究来探索W.A.R.A.技术以及诸如安慰剂效应等混杂变量的影响程度。
研究结果表明，W.A.R.A.可能是一种有效、可及且简短的减轻消极情绪的干预方法。尽管为时尚早，但这些初步结果令人鼓舞。
