Lauren S Hallion

• Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology
• Professor (Assistant) at University of Pittsburgh

Objective: The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is a widely used self-report measure of subjective emotion ability, as defined by a prominent clinically derived model of emotion regulation (Gratz and Roemer, 2004). Although the DERS is often used in treatment and research settings for adults with emotional (i.e., anxiety, mood, obses...

A rapid growth in computational power and an increasing availability of large, publicly-accessible, multimodal datasets present new opportunities for psychology and neuroscience researchers to ask novel questions, and to approach old questions in novel ways. Studies of the personal characteristics, situation-specific factors, and sociocultural cont...

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is defined in part by excessive and uncontrollable worry. However, little is known about cognitive control abilities in adults with GAD. The present study examined cognitive control over negative and neutral material in a mixed clinical sample of adults with GAD and/or obsessive-compulsive disorder and a compariso...

Perseverative thought (PT) is traditionally described in terms of mutually-exclusive subtypes (e.g., worry; rumination; obsessions). More recent studies suggest a transdiagnostic, dimensional structure; however, these studies have tended to focus classification efforts at the level of the person (trait) rather than at the level of the individual th...

Clinically significant anxiety is associated with an array of attentional symptoms (e.g., difficulty concentrating; unwanted thought) that are subjectively experienced as severe. However, neuropsychological findings are mixed with respect to the presence of cognitive deficits that can account for these symptoms. Contextualizing predictions from est...

Although uncontrollability is the core feature of perseverative thought that best accounts for its relationship to psychopathology, other features – for example, valence and content – have also been identified as potentially clinically-relevant in their own right. We describe results from a proof-of-concept study that examined the extent to which m...

Although uncontrollability is the core feature of perseverative thought that best accounts for its relationship to psychopathology, other features – for example, valence and content – have also been identified as potentially clinically-relevant in their own right. We describe results from a proof-of-concept study that examined the extent to which m...

Although uncontrollability is the core feature of perseverative thought that best accounts for its relationship to psychopathology, other features – for example, valence and content – have also been identified as potentially clinically-relevant in their own right. We describe results from a proof-of-concept study that examined the extent to which m...

Although uncontrollability is the core feature of perseverative thought that best accounts for its relationship to psychopathology, other features – for example, valence and content – have also been identified as potentially clinically-relevant in their own right. We describe results from a proof-of-concept study that examined the extent to which m...

Perseverative thought (also known as repetitive thought) is an established transdiagnostic mechanism of internalizing psychopathology characterized primarily by its repetitive, difficult to control quality. Subjective difficulty concentrating frequently coincides with perseverative thought and may function as both mechanism and clinical consequence...

Background: Efforts to identify risk and resilience factors for anxiety severity and course during the COVID-19 pandemic have focused primarily on demographic rather than psychological variables. Intolerance of uncertainty (IU), a transdiagnostic risk factor for anxiety, may be a particularly relevant vulnerability factor. Method: N = 641 adults wi...

Cognitive bias modification (CBM) has evolved from an experimental method testing cognitive mechanisms of psychopathology to a promising tool for accessible digital mental health care. While we are still discovering the conditions under which clinically relevant effects occur, the dire need for accessible, effective, and low-cost mental health tool...

Background: Efforts to identify risk and resilience factors for anxiety severity and course during the COVID-19 pandemic have focused primarily on demographic rather than psychological variables. Intolerance of uncertainty (IU), a transdiagnostic risk factor for anxiety, may be a particularly relevant vulnerability factor.Method: N = 641 adults wit...

Objective: Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is efficacious for hoarding disorder (HD), though results are modest. HD patients show an increase in activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) when making decisions. The aim of this study is to determine whether CBT's benefits follow improvements in dACC dysfunction or abnormalities prev...

Uncontrollable worry is a hallmark of generalized anxiety disorder and a transdiagnostic feature of psychopathology. Mindfulness-based strategies show promise for treating worry, but it is unknown which specific strategies are most beneficial, and how these skills might operate on a neurobiological level. We recruited 40 participants with clinicall...

Worry is a repetitive, negative thought process that is widely experienced as difficult to control. Despite the adverse effects of uncontrollable worry on academic and other role functioning, the mechanisms by which worry becomes uncontrollable remain poorly understood. Previous experimental work has historically emphasized valence (negative versus...

Like diagnostic status, clinically relevant thought remains overwhelmingly conceptualized in terms of discrete categories (e.g., worry, rumination, obsessions). However, definitions can vary widely. The area of perseverative thought (or clinically relevant thought more broadly) would benefit substantially from a consensus-based, empirically grounde...

Objectives Perseverative thought, an umbrella term encapsulating thoughts that are repetitive and difficult-to-control (e.g., worry; rumination), is a major feature and mechanism of anxiety and depression. Mindfulness-based interventions show promise for reducing perseverative thought and improving present-moment focus, but efforts to tailor or opt...

Background Individuals with hoarding disorder (HD) demonstrate exaggerated subjective distress and hyper-activation of cingulate and insular cortex regions when discarding personal possessions. No prior studies have sought to determine whether this subjective distress is associated with specific profiles of abnormal brain function in individuals wi...

Worry has been experimentally linked to a range of cognitive consequences, including impairments in working memory, inhibition, and cognitive control. However, findings are mixed, and the effects of worry on other phenomenologically-relevant constructs, such as sustained attention, have received less attention. Potential confounds such as speed-acc...

Worry has been experimentally linked to a range of cognitive consequences, including impairments in working memory, inhibition, and cognitive control. However, findings are mixed, and the effects of worry on other phenomenologically-relevant cognitive constructs, such as sustained attention, have received less attention. Potential confounds such as...

Background: Over the past decade, functional neuroimaging studies have found abnormal brain function in several cortical systems when patients with compulsive hoarding behaviors make decisions about personal possessions. The purpose of this study was to use functional magnetic resonance imaging to test a neurobiological model of hoarding disorder...

Perseverative thought (PT) is a major mechanism of anxiety and related forms of psychopathology. Although mindfulness-based interventions show promise for reducing PT, treatment development is hindered by an incomplete understanding of the relationships between dissociable facets of mindfulness (present-moment awareness; nonjudgment of experience;...

Objective: Hoarding disorder (HD) is a common and potentially debilitating psychiatric disorder. Thus far, psychological treatments have yielded modest effects and/or were time-consuming and costly to deliver. The aim of the present study was to test the efficacy of a brief group cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for adults with HD and to test hy...

A rapid growth in computational power and an increasing availability of large, publicly- accessible, multimodal datasets present new opportunities for psychology and neuroscience researchers to ask novel questions, and to approach old questions in novel ways. Studies of the personal characteristics, situation-specific factors, and sociocultural con...

The aim of this study was to investigate health-related quality of life (QoL) in patients with hoarding disorder (HD). Fifty-four patients with a primary diagnosis of HD, and 24 age- and sex-matched healthy control (HC) participants, completed a battery of questionnaires including the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36),...

Difficulty concentrating is one of the most common diagnostic criteria across DSM-5 categories, especially within the emotional (mood- and anxiety-related) disorders. A substantial literature has characterized cognitive functioning in emotional disorders using objective (behavioral) computerized cognitive tasks. However, diagnoses are typically for...

The aim of the present study was to examine subjective cognitive impairment among adult patients with hoarding disorder (HD). Eighty-three patients with HD and 46 age- and gender-matched healthy control (HC) participants received a diagnostic interview and completed measures of subjective cognitive functioning and motivations for saving behavior, a...

A comparative epidemiology of DSM-IV and DSM-5 generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) across the globe, using data from the World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health Surveys.

Three hundred sixty-two adult patients were administered the Diagnostic Interview for Anxiety, Mood, and OCD and Related Neuropsychiatric Disorders (DIAMOND). Of these, 121 provided interrater reliability data, and 115 provided test–retest reliability data. Participants also completed a battery of self-report measures that assess symptoms of anxiet...

Presents data from World Health Organization (WHO) surveys reflecting changes in the epidemiology of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) from DSM-IV to DSM-5.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Fifth Edition (DSM-5) includes excoriation (skin picking) disorder as a new diagnosis in the Obsessive Compulsive and Related Disorders chapter of the manual. Excoriation disorder is characterized by recurrent skin picking, despite repeated attempts to stop, resulting in skin lesions and s...

Importance: Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is poorly understood compared with other anxiety disorders, and debates persist about the seriousness of this disorder. Few data exist on GAD outside a small number of affluent, industrialized nations. No population-based data exist on GAD as it is currently defined in DSM-5. Objective: To provide the...

Cognitive models of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) propose that cognitive control, broadly construed, and inhibition specifically, play a role in the maintenance of GAD symptoms. However, few studies have explicitly investigated inhibition and its relation to worry and anxiety severity in GAD. Adults with GAD (n = 35) and healthy controls (n =...

Recent clinical trial research suggests that baseline low end-tidal CO2 (ETCO2, the biological marker of hyperventilation) may predict poorer response to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety-related disorders. The present study examined the predictive value of baseline ETCO2 among patients treated for such disorders in a naturalistic clin...

Tourette's disorder (TS) and chronic tic disorder (CTD) are neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by involuntary vocal and motor tics. Consequently, TS/CTD have been conceptualized as disorders of cognitive and motor inhibitory control. However, most neurocognitive studies have found comparable or superior inhibitory capacity among individuals...

BACKGROUND Hyperventilation (hypocapnia) is an anxiety-related biomarker of increasing research interest. Recently, hypocapnia, defined as end tidal CO 2 (ETCO 2) < 37 mmHg, has been shown to predict poorer outcomes in, and increased dropout from, cognitive-behavioral interventions. 1,2 Further examination of hyperventilation is therefore important...

Pathological skin picking, known as excoriation (skin-picking) disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), is a chronic and disabling obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorder characterized by repeated picking of the skin resulting in tissue damage. This chapter describes the successful treatment of a...

Background: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) holds promise for treating generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) but has only been studied in uncontrolled research. Aims: This is the first randomised controlled trial (clinicaltrials.gov: NCT01659736) to investigate the efficacy and neural correlates of rTMS in GAD. Method: Twenty...

Hoarding disorder (HD) is a prevalent and costly disorder that is associated with severe impairment and problems in health and safety (Tolin et al., 2008). HD was first recognized as a distinct entity in DSM-5; consequently, it is understudied relative to other disorders. Furthermore, no studies have directly investigated the generalizability of HD...

Introduction: Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) are two highly disabling, frequently comorbid conditions, currently conceptualized as different DSM-5 diagnoses. Recent data, however, suggest GAD and SAD form a continuum of shared dysfunction and may thus be better conceptualized using clinical dimensions. Emotio...

Although studies have documented heightened stress sensitivity in major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), the mechanisms involved are poorly understood. One possible mechanism is the tendency to ruminate in response to stress. We used ecological momentary assessment to study ruminative thoughts after stressful events...

Previously classified as an anxiety-related disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) was moved to a new "Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders" section in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM - 5; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). This section also includes body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), ho...

This chapter provides an overview of the rationale for combining cognitive-behavioral therapies and pharmacologic treatments. Relevant research literature is presented across a range of disorders including anxiety and related disorders, mood disorders, eating disorders, schizophrenia, and substance use disorders. In addition, practical consideratio...

Uncontrollable anxious thought characterizes a number of emotional disorders. Little is known, however, about the cognitive mechanisms that underlie the ability to control these thoughts. The present study investigated the extent to which two well-characterized executive control processes-working memory and inhibition-are engaged when an individual...

Uncontrollable anxious thought characterizes a number of emotional disorders and has been linked to impaired emotional and physical health. The present research aimed to clarify the nature of uncontrollable worry as a clinical and cognitive construct. Chapter 1 evaluated uncontrollability of worry as a diagnostic criterion for generalized anxiety d...

In its current instantiation in DSM-IV, a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) requires the presence of excessive and uncontrollable worry. It has been proposed that the uncontrollability criterion be removed from future editions of the DSM, primarily on the basis of empirical and conceptual overlap between excessiveness and uncontrollab...

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) frequently co-occur, yet the reasons for their comorbidity remain poorly understood. In the present experiment, we tested whether a tendency to engage in negative, repetitive thinking constitutes a common risk process for the two disorders. A mixed sample of adults with comorbid...

Cognitive biases have been theorized to play a critical role in the onset and maintenance of anxiety and depression. Cognitive bias modification (CBM), an experimental paradigm that uses training to induce maladaptive or adaptive cognitive biases, was developed to test these causal models. Although CBM has generated considerable interest in the pas...

Introduction Uncontrollable anxious thought is a central feature of many anxiety disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. However, little is known about the prefrontal executive control processes (ECPs) that underlie the ability to control worry. Difficulty engaging ECPs h...

The present study was conducted to identify predictors of residential treatment outcome for youth. Data were collected and analyzed on multiple variables including each subject's psychiatric diagnoses, previous treatment attempts and success or failure in these respective settings, length of stay in prior treatment settings, past psychiatric hospit...