Janelle M Caponigro

Publications (2)5.58 Total impact

• Article: Awareness and Coping with Emotion in Schizophrenia: Acceptability, Feasibility and Case Illustrations.

  Janelle M Caponigro, Erin K Moran, Ann M Kring, Judith T Moskowitz
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  ABSTRACT: Although current treatments help to alleviate some of the symptoms of schizophrenia, people with schizophrenia often continue to experience residual symptoms. An emotion-focused treatment approach may help to improve well-being in this population by increasing positive experiences and resources. In this article, we discuss the feasibility and acceptability of a skills-based group treatment for people schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. As part of the Awareness and Coping with Emotion in Schizophrenia (ACES) intervention, group members learned eight empirically supported cognitive and behavioural skills covering emotional awareness and coping. Group member feedback and three case illustrations illuminate participants' experiences with the group, as well as the potential benefits and challenges of this treatment approach. These data suggest that ACES is a feasible and acceptable group intervention. Future research is needed to examine whether ACES has a selective impact on well-being, but these initial findings point to the promise of this intervention to improve quality of life for individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, thus filling a void in existing treatments options. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEY PRACTITIONER MESSAGE: There is a void in existing treatments for schizophrenia with few interventions focusing on increasing well-being in this population. Awareness and Coping with Emotion in Schizophrenia (ACES) is a skills-based group intervention that teaches cognitive and behavioural interventions to promote awareness and coping with emotion. Preliminary evidence demonstrates the feasibility and acceptance of the ACES group intervention in increasing well-being in those with schizophrenia. Future studies should extend this work by systematically evaluating the efficacy of this treatment approach.
  Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy 04/2013; · 1.66 Impact Factor
• Article: Emotion in Schizophrenia: Where Feeling Meets Thinking.

  Ann M Kring, Janelle M Caponigro
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  ABSTRACT: Our understanding of the nature of emotional difficulties in schizophrenia has been greatly enhanced by translational research over the past two decades. By incorporating methods and theories from affective science, researchers have been able to discover that people with schizophrenia exhibit very few outward displays of emotion but report experiencing strong feelings in the presence of emotionally evocative stimuli or events. Recent behavioral, psychophysiological, and brain imaging research has pointed to the importance of considering the time course of emotion in schizophrenia. This work has shown that people with schizophrenia have the ability to experience emotion in the moment; however, they appear to have difficulties when anticipating future pleasurable experiences, and this perhaps affects their motivation to have such experiences. While advancements in our understanding of emotional experience and expression in individuals with schizophrenia have been made, these developments have led to a new collection of research questions directed at understanding the time course of emotion in schizophrenia, including the role of memory and anticipation in motivated behavior, translating laboratory findings to the development of new assessment tools and new treatments targeting emotional impairments in people with this disorder.
  Current Directions in Psychological Science 08/2010; 19(4):255-259. · 3.93 Impact Factor