Tobias Krieger

Universität Bern | UniBe · Institute of Psychology

Increased levels of self-criticism and a lack of self-compassion have been associated with the development and maintenance of a range of psychological disorders. In the current study, we tested the efficacy of an online version of a compassion-focused intervention, mindfulness-based compassionate living (MBCL), with guidance on request. A total of...

Introduction: Treatment as usual (TAU) is the most frequently used control group in randomized trials of psychotherapy for depression. Concerns have been raised that the heterogeneity of treatments in TAU leads to biased estimates of psychotherapy efficacy and to an unclear difference between TAU and control groups like waiting list (WL). Objecti...

Web-based self-help programs for individuals with depressive symptoms are efficacious. Differences in effect sizes and adherence rates might be due to contextual factors. This randomized factorial trial investigated the effects of four potentially supportive contextual factors on outcome and adherence. Two factors were provided through human contac...

Background: Loneliness, or perceived social isolation, is prevalent in both the general population and clinical practice. Although loneliness has repeatedly been associated with mental and physical health, research on interventions that reduce loneliness effectively is still rather scarce. Objective: This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of a...

Introduction: Internet-based self-help interventions have shown to be effective in the treatment of depression. Several meta-analyses indicated that human contact has a crucial impact on adherence and outcome. While most research focused on the role of guidance during interventions, a review by Andersson and Johansson (2012) suggested that contact...

Importance Variables such as severe symptoms, comorbidity, and sociodemographic characteristics (eg, low educational attainment or unemployment) are associated with a poorer prognosis in adults treated for depressive symptoms. The exclusion of patients with a poor prognosis from RCTs is negatively associated with the generalizability of research fi...

This study aimed to develop and test algorithms to determine the individual relevance of two psychotherapeutic change processes (i.e., mastery and clarification) for outcome prediction. We measured process and outcome variables in a naturalistic outpatient sample treated with an integrative treatment for a variety of diagnoses (n=608) during the fi...

Background: Transdiagnostic interventions targeting shared mechanisms may improve treatment of mental health disorders. One way of providing such interventions is through blended treatment. This study examined the addition of an internet-based emotion regulation intervention to face-to-face psychotherapy in an outpatient setting. Methods: In a pilo...

Loneliness is a prevalent and stigmatized phenomenon associated with adverse (mental) health outcomes. However, evidence-based interventions to alleviate loneliness are scarce. This randomized controlled trial (ClinicalTrials.gov-ID: NCT04655196) evaluated the efficacy of an internet-based cognitive behavioral self-help intervention (ICBT) to reduc...

BACKGROUND Increasing interest has centred on the psychotherapeutic working alliance as a means of understanding clinical change in digital mental health interventions in recent years. However, little is understood about how and to what extent a digital mental health program can have an impact on the working alliance and clinical outcomes in a blen...

Understanding which factors predict the outcome of internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (iCBT-I) may help to tailor this intervention to the patient’s needs. We have conducted a secondary analysis of a randomized, controlled trial comparing a multicomponent iCBT-I (MCT) and an online sleep restriction therapy (SRT) for 83 chroni...

Einsamkeit spielt nicht erst seit der Corona-Pandemie eine bedeutsame Rolle. Obwohl die meisten Menschen im Laufe ihres Lebens von Einsamkeit betroffen sind, ist sie schambehaftet und wird im Alltag tabuisiert. Durch eine interdisziplinäre und multiperspektivische Betrachtungsweise wird die Vielfalt der Einsamkeitserfahrungen sowie deren persönlich...

Chronische Einsamkeit geht mit einer Reihe negativer Konsequenzen für die psychische und physische Gesundheit einher. Da chronische Einsamkeit oft mit Schamgefühlen zusammenhängt, bedarf es niederschwelliger Interventionen, um Betroffene zu unterstützen. Nach einer Einleitung zu Internet-basierten Selbsthilfeinterventionen wird das Selbsthilfeprogr...

Introduction The combination of internet-based intervention and psychotherapy, commonly termed blended therapy (BT), has gained popularity in recent years. While advantages and disadvantages of BT have been identified from the patient and therapist perspective, the two perspectives have rarely been examined within the same treatment. Moreover, almo...

Guided web-based self-help programs for individuals with depressive symptoms have shown to be more efficacious than unguided programs. However, research has paid little attention to why guided interventions are superior. The present study investigated whether working alliance and adherence to the program mediated the effect of guidance on depressiv...

Objectives: This paper presents a randomized controlled trial on assimilative integration, which is aimed at integrating elements from other orientations within one approach to enrich its conceptual and practical repertoire. Elements from Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) were integrated into a form of cognitive behavior therapy: Psychological Therapy...

Etwa 5 bis 10% der erwachsenen Bevölkerung geben an, sich ziemlich häufig bis sehr häufig einsam zu fühlen. Darüber hinaus ist Einsamkeit ein Phänomen, welches im klinischen Alltag häufig anzutreffen ist, auch wenn es von Patientinnen und Patienten nicht immer spontan berichtet wird. Das aversive Gefühl der Einsamkeit tritt auf, wenn unser menschli...

Using a three-wave prospective cross-lagged panel design, the study examined six-month stability of burnout, self-compassion and social support among sports coaches in terms of measurement invariance, mean-level change, rank-order stability, and structural stability. The participating coaches (N = 422; Mage = 44.48, SD = 11.03) completed an online...

BACKGROUND Loneliness, or perceived social isolation, is prevalent in both the general population and clinical practice. Although loneliness has repeatedly been associated with mental and physical health, research on interventions that reduce loneliness effectively is still rather scarce. OBJECTIVE This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of a gui...

Background Although major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by a pervasive negative mood, research indicates that the mood of depressed patients is rarely entirely stagnant. It is often dynamic, distinguished by highs and lows, and it is highly responsive to external and internal regulatory processes. Mood dynamics can be defined as a comb...

By applying a diary study design, we investigated the role of self-compassion during sport-specific daily stress (SSDS) with regard to the negative self-conscious emotions of shame and guilt and training motivation. We hypothesised that self-compassion would protect athletes from certain self-conscious emotions, namely shame, after SSDS. We also pr...

Background Behavioral activation (BA), either as a stand-alone treatment or as part of cognitive behavioral therapy, has been shown to be effective for treating depression. The theoretical underpinnings of BA derive from Lewinsohn et al’s theory of depression. The central premise of BA is that having patients engage in more pleasant activities lead...

Background Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by a marked fear of negative evaluation in social situations and significant impairments. Even with the most effective treatments, remission rates are around 50%. An important reason for the limited effectiveness of treatments is the lack of evidence-based explanation of how treatments work...

Einsamkeit kann situativ und vorübergehend sein, aber auch langanhaltend und überdauernd. Obwohl Einsamkeitsgefühle oft zusammen mit depressiven Störungen auftreten, sollten sie nicht ausschließlich als ein Symptom einer Depression verstanden werden. Dieser Beitrag befasst sich mit der Definition von Einsamkeit und einem Erklärungsmodell von chroni...

Background: Treatment as usual (TAU) is the most frequently used control group in randomised trials of psychotherapy for depression and meta-analyses that summarise these trials. Concerns have been raised over imprecise and biased efficacy estimates because of substantial variability in the treatments provided in TAU. We set out to investigate the...

BACKGROUND Behavioral activation (BA), either as a stand-alone treatment or as part of cognitive behavioral therapy, has been shown to be effective for treating depression. The theoretical underpinnings of BA derive from Lewinsohn et al’s theory of depression. The central premise of BA is that having patients engage in more pleasant activities lead...

Background Online preventive interventions can help to reduce the incidence of mental disorders. Whereas knowledge on stakeholders’ attitudes and factors relevant for successfully integrating online treatment into existing healthcare systems is available, knowledge is scarce for online prevention. Methods Stakeholders from Germany, Switzerland, Au...

While mental health treatments have proven to be effective for a range of mental health problems, there is comparably little research on its effects on personality disorders or difficulty (PD). New dimensional conceptualizations of PD such as the ICD-11 PD model enable the cost-and time-effective dimensional assessment of severity and style of PD....

Background: Sleep disturbance symptoms are common in major depressive disorder (MDD) and have been found to hamper the treatment effect of conventional face-to-face psychological treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy. To increase the dissemination of evidence-based treatment, blended cognitive behavioral therapy (bCBT) consisting of web-...

BACKGROUND Sleep disturbance symptoms are common in major depressive disorder (MDD) and have been found to hamper the treatment effect of conventional face-to-face psychological treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy. To increase the dissemination of evidence-based treatment, blended cognitive behavioral therapy (bCBT) consisting of web-ba...

The aim of this study was to test the multilevel multidimensional finite mixture item response model of the Forms of Self-Criticising/Attacking and Self-Reassuring Scale (FSCRS) to cluster respondents and countries from 13 samples ( N = 7,714) and from 12 countries. The practical goal was to learn how many discrete classes there are on the level of...

Background: Emotion regulation has been identified as an important transdiagnostic factor relevant to the treatment of mental health disorders. Many empirically validated psychotherapeutic treatments incorporate elements targeting emotion regulation. Most of these treatment approaches are conceptualized as standard face-to-face treatments not as bl...

Over the past few years, research and application of internet-based psychotherapeutic interventions has grown rapidly. This kind of new therapeutic format offers a variety of chances for treating patients with psychotherapeutic disorders, but also arouses skepticism and concerns. This overview focuses on different forms of internet-based psychother...

Background Internet-based self-help interventions for individuals with depressive symptoms, in which the main component is often a web-based self-help program, have been shown to be efficacious in many controlled trials. However, there are also trials on self-help programs showing no significant effect when delivered in routine care, and some studi...

BACKGROUND Internet-based self-help interventions for individuals with depressive symptoms, in which the main component is often a web-based self-help program, have been shown to be efficacious in many controlled trials. However, there are also trials on self-help programs showing no significant effect when delivered in routine care, and some studi...

Background: Internet interventions have been shown to be effective in treating anxiety disorders. Most interventions to date focus on single disorders and disregard potential comorbidities. Objective: The aim of this mixed-methods study was to investigate feasibility, user experience, and effects of a newly developed individually tailored transd...

Background: Internet-delivered cognitive-behavior treatment for insomnia (iCBT-I) has the potential to fill the gap created by the discrepancy between insomnia cases and number of trained professionals. Although the effectiveness of this method was proven in multiple studies conducted in research settings, its feasibility in routine care is still...

Aim: This study analyzed patient-therapist in-session interpersonal complementarity effects on the therapeutic alliance and depression severity during the initial and working phase of cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression. It also explored if patients’ interpersonal problems moderate those complementarity effects. Methods: We drew on a sample...

Adjustment disorders (AjD) with depressive symptoms following an acquired brain injury (ABI) is a common phenomenon. Although brain injuries are increasing more and more, research on psychological therapies is comparably scarce. The present study compared, by means of a randomized controlled trial (RCT), a newly developed integrative treatment (Sta...

BACKGROUND Emotion regulation has been identified as an important transdiagnostic factor relevant to the treatment of mental disorders. A variety of empirically validated psychotherapeutic treatments aim to incorporate elements targeting emotion regulation. Most of these treatment approaches are conceptualized as standard face to face treatments, n...

Background and Objectives: This paper examines the discrepancy between implicit and explicit negative self-associations (NSA) after cognitive psychotherapy for depression as a predictor of long-term outcome. Methods: One hundred and twenty patients completed an Implicit-Association Test relating the self with depressive attributes and a self-repor...

Objective: Several studies have reported significant within-patient effects of the therapeutic alliance on outcome. However, it remains uncertain whether there are specific patient groups for whom an improved alliance might be particularly beneficial. The relational nature of the alliance makes patients' interpersonal problems a promising candidat...

Background Therapeutic alliance has been well established as a robust predictor of face-to-face psychotherapy outcomes. Although initial evidence positioned alliance as a relevant predictor of internet intervention success, some conceptual and methodological concerns were raised regarding the methods and instruments used to measure the alliance in...

Objective: This study aimed to identify differential patient change processes and mechanisms associated with long-term outcome in exposure-based cognitive therapy (EBCT) and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for depression. Method: We drew on a randomized controlled trial in which 149 patients were randomly assigned to either EBCT or CBT, with...

A variety of effective psychotherapies for depression are available, but patients who suffer from depression vary in their treatment response. Combining face-to-face therapies with internet-based elements in the sense of blended treatment is a new approach to treatment for depression. The goal of this study was to answer the following research ques...

Das vorliegende Kapitel gibt einen Überblick über verschiedene Formen von internet-basierten Interventionen und wie diese voneinander zu unterscheiden sind. Es wird unter anderem auf das Ausmaß der Begleitung (‘guidance’), die Nutzung resp. des Engagements der Nutzer (Adhärenz), als auch auf generelle Wirksamkeitsnachweise von internet-basierten In...

The purpose of this study was to examine the measurement invariance of the Forms of Self-Criticising/Attacking & Self-Reassuring Scale (FSCRS) in terms of Item Response Theory differential test functioning in thirteen distinct samples (N = 7714) from twelve different countries. We assessed differential test functioning for the three FSCRS subscales...

Over the past few years, research and application of internet-based psychotherapeutic interventions has grown rapidly. This kind of new therapeutic format offers a variety of chances for treating patients with psychotherapeutic disorders, but also arouses skepticism and concerns. This overview focuses on different forms of internet-based psychother...

BACKGROUND Internet interventions have been shown to be effective in treating anxiety disorders. Most interventions to date focus on single disorders and disregard potential comorbidities. OBJECTIVE The aim of this mixed-methods study was to investigate feasibility, user experience, and effects of a newly developed individually tailored transdiagn...

Interpersonal problems are key transdiagnostic constructs in psychopathology. In the past, investigators have neglected the importance of operationalizing interpersonal problems according to their latent structure by using divergent representations of the construct: (a) computing scores for severity, agency, and communion (“dimensional approach”),...

Even though different psychotherapeutic interventions for depression have shown to be effective, patients suffering from depression vary substantially in their treatment response. The goal of this study was to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the most important predictors determining optimal treatment allocation to cognitive be...

BACKGROUND The therapeutic alliance has been well established as a robust predictor of face-to-face psychotherapy outcome. Although initial evidence also positioned alliance as a relevant predictor of Internet interventions’ success, some conceptual and methodological concerns were raised regarding the methods and instruments used to measure the al...

Since the introduction of the dimensional assessment of personality functioning and maladaptive personality traits in the „alternative model for personality disorders“ in section III of the DSM-5, this approach to quantification of personality pathology underwent extensive scientific research. It has shown overall superiority compared to categorica...

Objective: This study analyses the psychometric properties of the Working Alliance Inventory adapted for guided Internet interventions (WAI-I). Methods: We drew on the data set from a multicenter trial that examined a guided Internet intervention (deprexis) for patients with mild to moderate depression. Two hundred twenty-three patients complete...

Die Erforschung und Anwendung internetbasierter psychosozialer Interventionen hat in den letzten Jahren rapide zugenommen. Das neue Behandlungsformat bietet viele Chancen, weckt aber auch Skepsis und Bedenken. Dieser Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über verschiedene Formen von Internet-Interventionen, neuere Entwicklungen und den aktuellen Stand in Fo...

Interpersonal problems are key transdiagnostic constructs in psychopathology. In the past, investigators have neglected the importance of operationalizing interpersonal problems according to their latent structure by using divergent representations of the construct: (a) computing scores for severity, agency, and communion (“dimensional approach”),...

Background: Internet-based cognitive behavioral treatment (iCBT) for insomnia comprising different sleep-related cognitive and behavioral interventional components has shown some promise, however, it is not known which components thereof are necessary for a good treatment outcome. Method: People suffering from insomnia (N = 104) without any other c...

SUMMARY: Electronically delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (eCBT) for depression is often regarded as an efficient treatment to augment antidepressant medication or face-to-face (FtF) CBT. Indeed, meta-analyses have shown that some eCBT interventions are effective, although they differ in content and efficacy. Little is known, however, about t...

There is considerable evidence that self-criticism plays a major role in the vulnerability to and recovery from psychopathology. Methods to measure this process, and its change over time, are therefore important for research in psychopathology and well-being. This study examined the factor structure of a widely used measure, the Forms of Self-Criti...

Internettherapie? Wie soll das gehen? Via Internet kann doch keine Beziehung aufgebaut werden! Und was ist mit all den Selbsthilfe-Apps? Sind sie zu empfehlen und können sie auch in der herkömmlichen Therapie verwendet werden? Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über verschiedene Formen von Internet-Interventionen und deren aktuellen Stand in Forschun...

Already in ancient times, the postulate of a strong association between personality characteristics and depression peaked thinkers’ curiosity. Its roots can be traced back to Hippocrates’ theory of melancholic humor, and it continued through Galen’s theory until the rise of psychological science in the 20th-century. Today, personality traits are of...

The full-text of the article is available here https://rdcu.be/WX1o There is considerable evidence that self-criticism plays a major role in the vulnerability to and recovery from psychopathology. Methods to measure this process, and its change over time, are therefore important for research in psychopathology and wellbeing. This study examined th...

Introduction: Depression is highly prevalent and often accompanied by comorbid anxiety disorder. Internet-based interventions have shown to be one effective treatment modality; however, comorbidities are often not targeted. Transdiagnostic tailored internet-and mobile-based interventions (IMIs) might be promising to overcome such issues. Aim: This...

Objective: Internet-based cognitive-behavioral treatments (ICBT) have shown promise for various mental disorders, including social anxiety disorder (SAD). Most of these treatments have been delivered on desktop computers. However, the use of smartphones is becoming ubiquitous and could extend the reach of ICBT into users' everyday life. Only a few...

Background: Blended cognitive behavioural therapy (bCBT), which combines face-to-face (FtF), and internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT), may be a particularly promising approach, but little is known about the effectiveness and patients' subjective evaluations of the bCBT format. The aim of this qualitative study is to explore perceive...

Background: Depression and anxiety are highly prevalent and often co-occur. Several studies indicate the potential of disorder-specific psychological interventions for the prevention each of these disorders. To treat comorbidity, transdiagnostic treatment concepts seem to be a promising approach, however, evidence for transdiagnostic concepts of pr...

Objective: Although there is an established link between patients’ early positive outcome expectation for and their actual improvement from therapy, there is little research on patients’ change in outcome expectation across therapy and both patient and therapist correlates of early outcome expectation level and change. The present study examined: (...

Depression is one of the most frequent mental health problems. Although there are several effective treatment options, only few individuals in need receive an appropriate treatment. During the last few years, research on internet-based interventions has grown rapidly. The aim of the present review is to summarize the current empirical evidence. In...

Background: Although observer-rated instruments assessing therapist's adherence to relapse-preventive treatments are available, they do not adequately cover specific relapse-preventive elements that focus on implementation of strategies after terminating treatment. This study describes the development of the KERI-D (Kodierbogen zur Erfassung Rückf...

Depressionen gehören zu den häufigsten psychischen Erkrankungen. Obwohl es verschiedene wirksame Behandlungen gibt, erhält nur ein geringer Anteil der Betroffenen eine angemessene Depressions-Behandlung. In den letzten Jahren wurden Internet-basierte Interventionen intensiv beforscht. Die vorliegende Übersichtsarbeit hat zum Ziel, den aktuellen For...

„Als Niemand im Nichts“ antwortete einst ein depressiver Patient im Erstgespräch auf die Frage, wie er sich fühle. Mit diesem Bild illustrierte er eindrücklich, wieso Depressionen auch als erlebte „Losigkeit“ bezeichnet werden: Neben Freud-, Antriebs-, oder Interesse-, spielt auch Wertlosigkeit, die man der eigenen Person zuschreibt, eine zentrale...