Personalizing (also referred to as “self-reference”) is a style of thinking in which individuals interpret events in a self-referential manner. Typically, these judgments are negatively self-orientated and evoke distress. At its most extreme, personalized thinking can contribute to persecutory delusions and ideas of reference (e.g., “My neighbors are following me and intend to hurt me”).

Self-blame is a common form of cognitive distortion or ‘unhelpful thinking style’. Characterized by the incorrect assignment of blame or responsibility for adverse events, it is often associated with self-criticism and accompanied by feelings of guilt, shame, regret, and self-directed frustration.

Our ‘Understanding…’ series is a collection of psychoeducation guides for common mental health conditions. The Understanding Perfectionism guide is designed to help clients with perfectionistic tendencies understand more about their condition, and why it might not get better by itself.

Many of us will experience trauma at some point in our lives. With time, most people recover from their experiences without needing professional help. However, for a significant proportion of people the effects of trauma last for much longer, and they develop a condition called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Empathy is central to almost all psychotherapies, particularly person-centred and experiential approaches. In this mixed-methods systematic review, Robert Elliott and colleagues explore the effectiveness of empathic reflections. The authors show that therapists can be taught to better recognize opportunities for empathy and improve the timing and accuracy of their reflections. Most helpfully, they offer detailed, practical guidance for improving the quality of therapists’ empathy, such as listening for and reflecting change talk, using empathic reflections when clients are unsure of their feelings, and paying close attention to how clients respond to these statements and correcting them when necessary.

In this fascinating study, researchers explored a novel intervention called Future Event Specificity Training (FEST) and its impact on future thinking amongst individuals experiencing depression. FEST, which consists of two group-based sessions, aims to enhance the specificity, detail, and use of imagery-rich future thoughts. Participants who underwent FEST exhibited improvements in their future thinking, behavioral activation, and overall functioning, as well as reduced likelihood of anhedonia. Overall, these findings suggest that targeted, imagery-focused interventions such as FEST hold promise for individuals with depression.