Rachel M Brand

• DClinPsy PhD
• Lecturer at University of the Sunshine Coast

There is growing recognition of the relationship between trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psychosis. There may be overlaps in causal mechanisms involved in the development of PTSD and psychosis following traumatic or adverse events. Trauma-focussed treatments found to be effective in treating PTSD may therefore represent a new direc...

Traumatic events are associated with increased risk of auditory hallucinations (AHs) and posttraumatic stress symptoms have been implicated in this relationship. We aimed to explore the moment-to-moment relationship between posttraumatic stress symptoms and AHs in daily-life. Twenty-eight people with persistent AHs and a history of traumatic events...

Objective There is mounting evidence that traumatic life events play a role in auditory hallucinations (AH). Theory suggests that some AH are decontextualized trauma memory intrusions. Exposure‐based trauma‐focused therapies that target trauma memory intrusions may therefore be a promising new treatment. We aimed to assess the feasibility and accep...

Many people who hear voices (also termed auditory‐verbal hallucinations) have experienced traumatic or adverse life events. There is growing evidence that, for a number of people, these events are an important contributing factor to voice‐hearing experiences. Psychological mechanisms implicated in the trauma‐voice‐hearing relationship overlap with...

Background Voice hearing occurs across a number of psychiatric diagnoses and appears to be present on a continuum within the general population. Previous research has highlighted the potential role of past experiences of shame in proneness to voice hearing in the general population. Aims This study aimed to extend this past research and compare pe...

Objective: People who experience distressing voices frequently report negative (e.g. abusive or threatening) voice content and this is a key driver of distress. There has also been recognition that positive (e.g. reassuring, or guiding) voice content contributes to better outcomes. Despite this, voice content has been neglected as a standalone out...

Objective: There is growing evidence of a link between the experience of hearing voices and past traumatic events, and trauma-focussed psychological interventions are being applied to hearing voices as an emerging treatment direction. To inform the ongoing development and implementation of this application, there is a need to understand clients' t...

Abstract Introduction: Recent theoretical models and preliminary data suggest that shame is a central emotion in the context of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH or voice-hearing). Nevertheless, all previous studies were correlational. Thus, the present study sought to explore whether AVH experiences can trigger shame using an experimental design...

Introduction: A strong link between voice-hearing experience and childhood trauma has been established. The aim of this study was to identify whether there were unique clusters of childhood trauma subtypes in a sample across the clinical spectrum of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) and to examine clinical and phenomenological features across th...

Past adverse experiences and negative self-schemas have been found to be a vulnerability factor to voice-hearing and also shape the content and emotional salience of these experiences. Past shameful experiences and their consequences (e.g., traumatic characteristics, self-criticism, shame) may also be relevant in the context of voice-hearing. This...

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a widespread adoption of videoconferencing as a communication medium in mental health service delivery. This review considers the empirical literature to date on using videoconferencing to deliver psychological therapy to adults presenting with mental health problems. Method: Papers were identified...

Psychological treatments for hallucinations typically target auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) but neglect the influence of hallucinations in other sensory modalities. This study compared the baseline clinical characteristics and therapeutic outcomes (following brief Coping Strategy Enhancement) of adult clients (N = 100) with multimodal or unim...

The Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders (UP) is an intervention that targets common mechanisms that maintain symptoms across multiple disorders. The UP has been shown to be effective across many disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive episode (MDE), and panic disorder, that commonly code...

Telepsychology holds promise as a treatment delivery method that may increase access to services as well as reduce barriers to treatment accessibility. The aim of this rapid evidence assessment was to assess the evidence for synchronous telepsychology interventions for 4 common mental health conditions (depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress dis...

Background and aims There is growing recognition of the relationship between trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psychotic experiences and there may be overlaps in causal mechanisms involved. Given these potential mechanistic overlaps, the application of evidence-based, trauma-focussed treatments for PTSD in the treatment of psychotic...

Objective: In the aftermath of a potentially traumatic event, people may experience a range of mental health outcomes, including subclinical symptoms and distress. There is growing evidence that trauma survivors with subclinical symptoms are at increased risk of developing later psychiatric disorders, and this is especially the case with severe in...

Background: The mental health outcomes of military personnel deployed onpeacekeeping missions have been relatively neglected in themilitary mental health literature. Aims: To assess the mental health impacts of peacekeeping deployments. Methods: In total, 1025 Australian peacekeepers were assessed forcurrent and lifetime psychiatric diagnoses, se...

In this article the growing evidence base for acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for psychosis is reviewed. A small scale evaluation of an ACT group in an Early Intervention in Psychosis service in South West London is presented.

AimsTo highlight the importance of friendships to young people with psychosis, and the need for clinical interventions to help maintain peer relationships during illness. To structure a research agenda for developing evidence-based interventions with friends.Method An argument is developed through a narrative review of (i) the proven efficacy of fa...

You take a break from psychiatry training to spend some time working in a children’s rehabilitation center in an East African country. The region is a conflict zone which has become notorious for child abduction, and many of the children in the center have experienced psychological trauma. You consider the likely mental health consequences of wides...

Psychosis has a concerning social impact and can lead to significant reductions in social networks early in its course. There are serious developmental and illness-related implications of reduced social networks which make it important to understand why this occurs. This study aimed to explore the often neglected perspective of friends in order to...