Psychology Seminar Series

Dr Lucy Robinson, School of Psychology, Newcastle University

“Exploring depression very differently: what insights can dynamic modelling of individualised symptom networks bring us?"

A sea-change is beginning in how we conceptualise and study psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety. This talk outlines the underlying rationale behind exploring disorders as networks of mutually causal symptoms rather than as the result of discrete single causes (such as 'genetics' or 'trauma'). Whilst a multifaceted understanding of mental health problems is often endorsed by practising clinicians, the language and research practices used still reflect an often dualistic and 'common-cause' implicit understanding of the causes of mental health difficulties. This talk discusses the network analysis approach and the insights this has brought us so far, as well as presenting unique single case data recorded throughout an individual client's treatment for depression with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and for 8 months after this ended. The dynamic network model shows how the relationship between thoughts and behaviours changed over time (estimated using novel time-varying mixed vector autoregression for networks). Does Cognitive Behavioural Therapy work the way we think it does? And if not, where does that leave us?

Please forward any enquiries to Nicki Turner