Publications by authors named "David J Miklowitz"

Parents of youth with mood or psychotic disorders are affected by and also impact the course of their offspring's psychiatric illness(es). Few studies have examined the effects of family psychotherapy on parents' mental health in this population. This study involved a multifamily group cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for adolescents with mood or psychotic spectrum disorders and their parents, and tested whether a mobile application (app) could increase therapeutic engagement and skill practice.

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Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) are characterized by social impairments. Social impairment also occurs in the general community. Across clinical and nonclinical groups social impairment may be related to deficits in social approach and/or social avoidance motivation.

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Background: Levels of expressed emotion (EE) in caregivers are associated with recurrence risk in individuals with mood disorders. In adolescent offspring of parents with mood disorders, we examined the longitudinal associations between parental EE, family conflict and youths' mood states during a trial of family-focused therapy (FFT).

Methods: Participants (N = 62; mean 15.

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We present divergent experiences of 2 patients who participated in a clinical trial of psilocybin-assisted cognitive behavioral therapy for major depressive disorder. Both patients participated in an open trial involving 2 drug administration sessions separated by one month (10 and 25 mg, respectively) along with 12 sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy. The first of the 2 patients had powerful and beneficial experiences on psilocybin that led to immediate and sustained antidepressant effects over the 7-month study.

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Objective: In offspring of parents with bipolar or major depressive disorder, we examined the longitudinal association between parents' and youths' ratings of family conflict and criticism and youths' levels of impulsive aggression during a 6-month randomized trial of family intervention.

Method: Following a diagnostic evaluation, we offered adolescents (aged 13-19 years) and parents with mood disorders a 12-session, 18-week protocol of family-focused therapy, with random assignment to mobile applications that enabled mood tracking or encouraged practice of mood management and family communication skills, also with mood tracking. At pretreatment, 9 weeks, 18 weeks (posttreatment), and 27 weeks, parents completed measures of adolescent aggression and irritability, and parents/adolescents completed measures of dyadic conflict and perceived criticism.

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Aim: Treatment for youth who are at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-P) presents an opportunity for early intervention with the capacity to decrease the burden associated with a potential psychotic disorder later in life. However, significant barriers prevent youth at CHR-P from accessing speciality mental health services. Few studies have examined the pathways to care for youth at CHR-P within the U.

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The question of whether family dysfunction predates or is a consequence of individual psychopathology is almost as old as the mind-body problem. In traditional family systems views, individual psychopathology emerges from pathology in the family as a whole and is best alleviated by treating the familial context. Medical models view family system disturbances as reflecting caregiver distress in managing the psychiatric symptoms of another family member.

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: Evidence-based psychosocial treatments for the early stages of mood or psychotic spectrum disorders are difficult to find in public health settings, and the efficacy of these treatments is limited by inconsistent behavioral skill practice among youth between sessions. Treatments can be made more accessible and efficacious when delivered through a group format that makes use of mobile applications to remind users to practice skills. : We conducted a 9-week, randomized controlled trial of the unified protocol (UP) for cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) delivered via telehealth in a group format, comparing an app-enhanced version of the treatment (AppUP) to standard UP for adolescents with mood and psychotic spectrum conditions.

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The broad acceptance of evidence-based psychosocial interventions as adjuncts to pharmacotherapy for bipolar disorder has been inhibited by the extensive training, supervision, and fidelity requirements of these approaches. Interventions that emphasize evidence-based strategies drawn from these modalities-rather than the full manualized protocols-may broaden the availability of psychotherapy for patients with bipolar disorder. In this article, psychosocial risk factors relevant to the course of bipolar disorder (stressful life events that disrupt social rhythms, lack of social support, family criticism and conflict, and lack of illness awareness or literacy) are reviewed, along with evidence-based psychosocial interventions (e.

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Article Synopsis
  • Social disconnection, including objective isolation and subjective loneliness, significantly impacts health, especially in mental illness.
  • A study utilized machine learning to identify predictors of social isolation and loneliness specifically in individuals with schizophrenia, comparing them to groups with bipolar disorder and a socially isolated community sample.
  • The findings indicated that social anhedonia is a common predictor of isolation and loneliness across all groups, while nonsocial cognition uniquely influenced social isolation in schizophrenia, suggesting different intervention strategies may be needed.
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Objective: Behavioral interventions require considerable practice of treatment skills in between therapy sessions. The effects of these treatments may vary with the degree to which patients are able to implement these practices. In offspring of parents with bipolar and major depressive disorders, we examined whether youth who frequently practiced communication and problem-solving skills between family-focused therapy (FFT) sessions had less severe mood symptoms and better psychosocial functioning over 6 months than youth who practiced less frequently.

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Aim: There is limited research on the effects of sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors on treatment outcomes in youth at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHRp). This study examined sociodemographic factors that may affect functional outcomes within this population. Specifically, we investigated the influence of race/ethnicity (dichotomized as non-Hispanic whites [NHW] vs.

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Background: People with schizophrenia on average are more socially isolated, lonelier, have more social cognitive impairment, and are less socially motivated than healthy individuals. People with bipolar disorder also have social isolation, though typically less than that seen in schizophrenia. We aimed to disentangle whether the social cognitive and social motivation impairments observed in schizophrenia are a specific feature of the clinical condition social isolation generally.

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People with schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) have impairments in processing social information, including faces. The neural correlates of face processing are widely studied with the N170 ERP component. However, it is unclear whether N170 deficits reflect neural abnormalities associated with these clinical conditions or differences in social environments.

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Adolescent-onset depression is a prevalent and debilitating condition commonly associated with treatment refractory depression and non-response to first-line antidepressants. There are, however, no objective tests to determine who may or may not respond to antidepressants. As depressed adolescents are especially vulnerable to the lifelong consequences of ineffectively-treated depression, it is critical to identify neurobiological predictors of treatment non-response in this population.

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Objective: Family-focused therapy (FFT) is associated with enhanced outcomes in youth with bipolar and depressive disorders, but has not been evaluated in conjunction with mobile health tools. In symptomatic adolescents whose parents had histories of mood disorders, we examined whether the effects of telehealth-based FFT were augmented by mobile health apps that emphasized mood tracking and family coping skills.

Method: Participants (aged 13-19 years) had active mood symptoms and a parent with major depressive or bipolar disorder.

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Background: Recent studies suggest that one to two administrations of psilocybin have acute antidepressant effects for people with major depressive disorder. These data on psilocybin have generated considerable enthusiasm, but little empirical attention has been paid to the therapy that adjoins psilocybin treatment (psychedelic-assisted therapy, or PAT).

Materials And Methods: In this study, we present the initial protocol and plans to empirically test the psychosocial therapy that adjoins psilocybin treatment with the goal of optimizing this therapeutic approach for adults with major depressive disorder.

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Predicting mood disorders in adolescence is a challenge that motivates research to identify neurocognitive predictors of symptom expression and clinical profiles. This study used machine learning to test whether neurocognitive variables predicted future manic or anhedonic symptoms in two adolescent samples risk-enriched for lifetime mood disorders (Sample 1, = 73, ages = 13-25, [] = 19.22 [2.

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Background: Since the COVID-19 pandemic, psychosocial therapies have been provided in varying formats, including remote, in-person, and hybrid services. It is unclear whether varying formats are similarly efficacious in improving psychiatric symptoms and functioning, lead to similar rates of treatment retention, and are equally acceptable to patients. This study compared youth with mood disorders and/or psychosis-risk syndromes who participated in a group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in-person prior to COVID-19, to youth in the same treatment given remotely during the pandemic.

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Article Synopsis
  • Adolescence is a key time for brain development and is also when mood disorders, like depression and mania, commonly emerge.
  • A study of 419 adolescents found that mood symptoms can impact how well these individuals perform on tasks related to reward learning and executive functioning.
  • Specifically, those with high mania symptoms excelled in reward learning during early puberty, while those with anhedonia struggled; older teens with higher mania showed worse executive functioning. This suggests that mood disorders can significantly influence neurocognitive development during adolescence.
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