Trevor G. MazzucchelliCurtin University · School of Psychology and Speech Pathology
Trevor G. Mazzucchelli
BA(Hons), MPsych(Clinical), PhD, MAPS, MCCLP
About
107
Publications
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Introduction
Trevor has been a registered and practising clinical psychologist since 1994. His research interests are broad and include how individuals and families can achieve optimal levels of functioning under both stressful and normal circumstances.
Publications
Publications (107)
Introduction. Engagement with life is central to ageing well. There is currently a lack of flexible programs for promoting engagement that tailor to the unique interests, capacities, and life circumstances of individuals. We designed and evaluated a new program for promoting engagement with later life based on principles of behavioral activation. M...
Alexithymia is an important transdiagnostic risk factor for many psychopathologies. To explore its relevance for personality disorders, we examined the association between alexithymia and maladaptive personality traits, as conceptualized within the DSM-5-TR alternative model of personality disorders (i.e., negative affect, detachment, antagonism, d...
Previous research has indicated the suitability of behavioural activation (BA) as an intervention for reducing depression in older adults. However, little research has investigated the potential of BA to increase active engagement and well-being in older adults. The current pilot study sought to investigate the usefulness and acceptability of BA to...
Objectives
Self-compassion has been identified as a psychological resource for aging well. To date, self-compassion among older adults has typically been conceptualized as a trait variable. This study examined whether day-to-day (state) variability in self-compassion was associated with negative affective reactivity to daily stressors.
Methods
Dai...
Clinical perfectionism, self-esteem, mood intolerance, and interpersonal difficulties are associated with eating disorder symptoms in clinical samples. The aim of the current study was to test a model including clinical perfectionism, self-esteem, mood intolerance, and interpersonal difficulties to understand eating disorder symptoms in an adolesce...
Purpose
Perfectionism is a transdiagnostic risk factor for eating disorders. Treating perfectionism can reduce symptoms of eating disorders. No research has examined an indicated prevention trial using internet-based Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for Perfectionism (ICBT-P) in adolescent girls at elevated risk for eating disorders. Our aim was to co...
Background
There is a strong association between perfectionism and eating disorders. In a cognitive–behavioural model of compulsive exercise it has been suggested there are reciprocal associations between perfectionism, eating disorder pathology, and compulsive exercise. No study has examined if there is an indirect association between perfectionis...
While childhood bereavement is common, children’s bereavement needs are not well understood. It is recognized that children’s understandings of death fundamentally differ from those of adults, however, limited research has explored this from a child’s perspective. Insight about children’s understandings and needs can be drawn from the questions the...
Taking part in formal classes or social engagement opportunities are important aspects of ageing well, yet little is known about the key elements underlying the success of these initiatives. This qualitative study therefore aimed to examine older adults' views on characteristics of formal classes or opportunities that support engagement. Twenty-fou...
Objective:
Across all of Australia's states and territories, it is legal for a parent or carer to hit their child. In this paper, we outline the legal context for corporal punishment in Australia and the argument for its reform.
Methods:
We review the laws that allow corporal punishment, the international agreements on children's rights, the evi...
Background
Meaningful activity engagement is a critical element of ageing well. Interventions designed to increase activity engagement tend to be activity-specific and do not always meet the needs of older adults with diverse interests and capacities. Behavioural activation (BA) provides a promising person-centred framework for promoting engagement...
Background
Explores the validity of the five-item parental adjustment scale, a subscale of the previously validated Parenting and Family Adjustment Scales.
Aim
The aim was to assess the factor structure and convergent validity of a measure of parental adjustment within parents of typically developing children and parents of childiren with developm...
Objectives:
Losses that occur with age can create barriers to meaningful activity engagement, a crucial aspect of ageing well. Research on this topic is frequently qualitative, with few studies accessing large community samples. This study (a) assessed the frequency specific personal and environmental barriers (such as poor health and limited tran...
Perfectionism has a strong association with eating disorders, anxiety and depression. Unguided internet cognitive behaviour therapy for perfectionism has demonstrated efficacy in female adolescents without elevated eating disorder symptoms. No research to date has examined unguided internet cognitive behaviour therapy for perfectionism for adolesce...
Parenting self-regulation is increasingly recognised as an important facet of positive parenting, as it allows parents to manage their thoughts, behaviours, emotions and attention in order to effectively carry out parenting tasks. Evidence-based parenting programmes such as the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program aim to increase parenting self-regu...
Objectives:
Parenting is central to children's optimal development and accounts for a substantial proportion of the variance in child outcomes, including up to 40% of child mental health. Parenting is also one of the most modifiable, proximal, and direct factors for preventing and treating a range of children's problems and enhancing wellbeing. To...
Objective
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on mental health. There is an urgent need to deliver low-intensity cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) tailored to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic. The aim was to engage in a qualitative study of participants’ views surrounding anxiety and depression during the pandemic and feedback on the...
Objective:
Developing an effective population-level system of evidence-based parenting support capable of shifting (at a population level) rates of child maltreatment and social, emotional, and behavioral problems in children requires an integrated theory of change. This paper presents a systems-contextual model of change and identifies modifiable...
Accurate quality of life assessment is crucial for the development of our understanding of positive ageing. The Older People’s Quality of Life Scale (OPQOL) is a measure developed for use with older adult samples; however, its factor structure remains unclear and measurement consistency across population subgroups has not yet been confirmed. 432 Au...
Parents can be essential change-agents in their children’s lives. To support parents in their parenting role, a range of programs have been developed and evaluated. In this paper, we provide an overview of the evidence for the effectiveness of parenting interventions for parents and children across a range of outcomes, including child and adolescen...
Meaningful activity engagement in later life is widely recognized as crucial for ageing well, but age-related changes and transitions can impede such participation. A behavioral activation framework can provide a person-centred, value-consistent therapeutic approach to increasing activity engagement that is both easy to administer, cost effective a...
School connectedness is an important protective factor for adolescent mental health. The researchers interviewed 21 mothers of students aged 11–16 years on the autism spectrum in urban and regional Australia to explore factors that influenced school connectedness and how these mothers constructed roles in supporting their children’s school connecte...
Objectives
The objectives of this study were to explore whether avoidance and activation mediate the relationship between self-compassion and depressive symptoms. Research investigating these mechanisms may help identify potential intervention targets for preventing depression.
Methods
A cross-sectional survey design was employed involving 242 non...
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe impact on mental health worldwide, with increased rates of anxiety and depression widely documented. The aim of this study was to examine unguided low intensity cognitive behaviour therapy for anxiety and depression during the pandemic. A sample of 225 individuals in Australia and the United Kingdom (M age 37....
Parents can be essential change-agents in their children’s lives. To support parents in their parenting role, a range of programs have been developed and evaluated. In this paper, we provide an overview of the evidence for the effectiveness of parenting interventions for parents and children across a range of outcomes, including child and adolescen...
Background
Parents of children with developmental or intellectual disabilities tend to report greater use of coercive parenting practices relative to parents of typically developing children, increasing the risk of adverse child outcomes. However, to date, there is limited research exploring the role and relative contribution of modifiable and nonm...
Objective: Prolonged grief disorder (PGD) is a debilitating disorder that affects seven percent of the bereaved. The search for effective and efficient treatments is ongoing. This study tested the feasibility of an adapted version of brief behavioural activation (BA) for depression revised (BATD-R).
Method: After a three-week baseline, two bereaved...
Objective
The validity of the transdiagnostic cognitive-behavioural model of eating disorders has been examined in adults, however there is limited examination in adolescents with eating disorders. The present study examined the direct and indirect relationships between eating disorder symptoms and the four maintaining processes: perfectionism, low...
Purpose
This study reports findings from a clinical trial that implemented an early stuttering treatment program integrated with evidence-based parenting support (EBPS) to children who stutter (CWS) with concomitant self-regulation challenges manifested in elevated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (eADHD) symptoms and compared those outcome...
Background
Perfectionism is elevated across a range of psychopathologies and has shown to impede treatment outcomes. There is also evidence suggesting elevated perfectionism may contribute to the onset and maintenance of non-suicidal self-injury. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that Internet-delivered cognitive-behavioural therapy fo...
Objectives
Striving to avoid inferiority, fear of compassion from others, and self-criticism are all factors that have been linked to increased depressive symptoms. However, less is known about the mechanisms of their relationship with depression, and even less about their relationship and potential interaction with each other. This study aimed to...
Executive functioning and self-regulation influence a range of outcomes across the life course including physical and mental health, educational success, and employment. Children prenatally exposed to alcohol or early life trauma (ELT) are at higher risk of impairment of these skills and may require intervention to address self-regulation deficits....
Academics working in higher education institutions often take part in research activities as part of their role and are often under pressure to publish papers and source grant funding. In addition, academics going through the peer review process often experience negative feedback, criticism, and rejection on a regular basis. In this initial, small-...
Background:
Despite the body of literature regarding the varying definition of compassion, there appears a lack of literature pertaining to the meaning of compassion from the perspective of health care professionals working in palliative care settings.
Objective:
The study aimed to explore how health care professionals working in palliative care s...
We assessed the acceptability and effectiveness of a new childhood bereavement service known as Lionheart Camp for Kids. Using a pre-post-follow-up design, data pertaining to 12 bereaved children (aged 5–12 years) and their primary caregivers were obtained. Results showed that caregivers reported decreases in children’s peer relationship problems,...
Purpose:
Recent research has identified approximately half of children who stutter present with self-regulation challenges. These manifest in elevated inattentive and/or impulsive behaviours, aligned with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. These symptoms have been found to influence the child's responsiveness to their stutte...
Objective
This study sought to provide up‐to‐date normative data on the productivity and citation impact of publications by Australian academic psychologists at each academic level (lecturer to professor) and for each university grouping (e.g., Group of Eight [Go8], Australian Technology Network, etc.).
Method
Publication and citation data for a r...
Evidence-based psychotherapies or programs (EBPs) exist for most mental health disorders that occur in childhood; however, the majority of children with a mental health disorder do not receive such treatments. This research-practice gap has been attributed to a range of factors that complicate the delivery of EBPs in everyday practice. While most s...
We aimed to clarify whether relationships of behavioural activation, avoidance, and response-contingent positive reinforcement with subjective wellbeing components supported a behavioural subjective wellbeing model. We used a correlational, cross-sectional design, and collected data online from a convenience and snowball sample of 224 participants...
Self-regulation and executive functioning impairments are common in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Given the high rates of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder identified amongst children living in the remote Fitzroy Valley region of Western Australia, the Alert Program® was identified as a culturally safe intervention for use in local p...
Purpose:
The temperament construct of effortful control, an index of self-regulation and resilience, has been found to be predictive of stuttering severity in children and is a potential indicator of clinical prognosis. Evidence supports early intervention for preschool stuttering, and the successful effect of parents as agents of change in their...
High quality relationships are essential to psychological health and well-being, and relational intimacy is a core feature of these relationships. Decades of research in relationship science have converged on a central model of intimacy wherein individuals develop close, trusting relationships with one another. Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FA...
Purpose:
This study described the proportion of children who stutter who exhibit Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms, manifesting in inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive behaviours. Children who stutter with these challenging behaviours may not respond as quickly and successfully to stuttering treatment. A preliminary explora...
Background:
Many parents of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) report that they are ill-equipped to support their children's behaviour, and these youths are known to be at substantially greater risk of emotional or behavioural problems compared to their typically developing peers. There is a need for an efficient and tailored parentin...
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE We undertook a randomized controlled trial to assess the efficacy of group-based behavioral activation with mindfulness (BAM) for treating subthreshold depression in primary care in Hong Kong.
METHODS We recruited adult patients aged 18 years or older with subthreshold depression from public primary care clinics and randomly assi...
Introduction
While research highlights the benefits of early diagnosis and intervention for children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), there are limited data documenting effective interventions for Australian children living in remote communities.
Methods and analysis
This self-controlled cluster randomised trial is evaluating the effe...
Professor Jay Spencer Birnbrauer peacefully passed away on November 1, 2017, aged 83, in Perth, Western Australia. Known to his friends and colleagues in Australia as ‘Birny’, he was a pioneer of applied behaviour analysis on both the Australian and world stage. He contributed to the development of behaviour-analytic technology for children with in...
Background:
Children with a developmental disability are three to four times more likely than their typically developing peers of developing significant emotional and behavioural problems. There is strong evidence to suggest that individual biological and psychological factors interact with family functioning to precipitate and perpetuate these pr...
Children with a developmental disability are at a substantially greater risk, when compared to their typically developing peers, of showing a variety of emotional and behavioral problems. These problems can have a profound impact on the child’s and family’s life course. Child, parenting, and family factors have all been implicated in the developmen...
Innovation has characterized the whole field of behavioral family intervention since its inception. This chapter reflects on the innovative developments that have occurred over the past four decades as the field of evidence-based parenting support has evolved in response to cumulating evidence relating to effectiveness. Despite these advances, it i...
Introduction
The provision of peer mentoring may improve tertiary education outcomes of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study evaluated the pilot year of the Curtin Specialist Mentoring Program (CSMP), a specialised peer mentoring program for university students with ASD aimed at improving self-reported well-being, academic succe...
Aim:
To develop and evaluate an evidence-based and theory driven program for the primary prevention of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Design:
A pre-intervention / post-intervention / follow up control group design with clustered random allocation of participants to groups was used. The "control" group received "Training as Usual" (TAU)....
CONSORT Checklist.
(DOC)
While it is widely accepted that fire and emergency work is of high risk for potentially traumatic event exposure and post-trauma pathology, there has been limited published data regarding Australian fire and emergency service workers. The relationship between trauma exposure and mental health outcomes, in particular the significance of social supp...
This article presents a quick guide of evidence-based approaches for behavioral activation (BA). BA is a structured, brief, psychotherapeutic approach that aims to increase engagement in activities that help individuals experience greater contact with response-contingent positive reinforcement in their lives and to solve life problems. The treatmen...
Background A substantial proportion of the population have a persistent pain condition. In addition to considerable personal suffering, these conditions have a massive economic cost at a society level in terms of health expenditure and lost productivity. To address this immense public health problem, treatment approaches are needed that are based o...
Background Major depressive disorder is predicted to be the lead cause of disease burden by 2030. Despite evidence suggesting that major depressive disorder can be prevented, little attention has been paid to developing interventions for this purpose. As research suggests that high levels of subjective well-being may protect against depression, an...
This study explored whether the university environment provides similar well-being enhancing elements to those that have been found in the workplace and school contexts. Whether psychological inflexibility accounts for well-being over and above personality and environmental influences was also explored. A representative sample of 163 undergraduate...
High-functioning children with autism spectrum disorders display social skill deficits that can have a debilitating impact on their daily lives. The Secret Agent Society (SAS) program has been shown to be effective in improving the social skills of these children when delivered in a group setting. This pilot study evaluated whether individually del...
Purpose:
To examine the challenges faced by parents of teenagers with a disability to determine the need for a tailored parenting program for this population.
Method:
Focus groups were conducted with six parents and nine practitioners with experience supporting parents of teenagers with a disability.
Results:
An inductive thematic analysis rev...
It has recently been asserted that a paradigm shift is emerging in the delivery of parenting programs. Specifically, it has been suggested that interventions from the field of interpersonal neurobiology represent sophisticated alternatives to positive parenting interventions based on social learning models and behavioural principles, and better ref...
This workshop will explore issues related to the concept of “flexibility and fidelity.” How can Triple P be provided to meet the diverse needs of families, but in ways that do not move it beyond its evidence base? The aim of this workshop will be to provide participants with ideas to enhance intervention fidelity and effectiveness by considering wh...
Research has suggested that perfectionism, agreeableness, and neuroticism may influence relationship adjustment; however, these personality variables have not been examined in conjunction when considering relationship adjustment. In a sample of 222 university students (95 male, 126 female), the perfectionism dimensions of concern over mistakes and...
The capacity for a parent to self-regulate their own performance is argued to be a fundamental process underpinning the maintenance of positive, nurturing, non-abusive parenting practices that promote good developmental and health outcomes in children. Deficits in self-regulatory capacity, which have their origins in early childhood, are common in...
A meta-analytic review of the Triple P-Positive Parenting program by Wilson et al., recently published in BMC Medicine, claimed to demonstrate that although Triple P is widely disseminated and adopted, the evidence attesting to the effectiveness of the program is not as convincing as it may appear. Although this review addresses the important issue...
This paper outlines the theoretical, empirical and clinical foundations of a parenting and family support strategy designed to reduce the prevalence of behavioural and emotional problems in children with developmental disabilities. The strategy known as the Stepping Stones Triple P—Positive Parenting Program is a parallel version of the core Triple...
This chapter has describes how Triple P-Positive Parenting Program uses feedback to promote skill acquisition by parents and practitioners. Triple P expands the range of skills that are typically targeted in training such that self-regulatory skills are given prominence. It does this by adopting a feedback approach that simultaneously enhances pare...
Children with developmental disabilities are at substantially greater risk of developing emotional and behavioural problems compared to their typically developing peers. While the quality of parenting that children receive has a major effect on their development, empirically supported parenting programs reach relatively few parents. A recent trend...
[Clin Psychol Sci Prac 17: 238–252, 2010]
Reluctance by practitioners to follow manuals is often cited as a reason for the lack of adoption of empirically supported treatments (ESTs). We contend that rigid adherence to the therapeutic techniques described in a manual is neither necessary nor desirable. Rather, practitioners should flexibly deliver...
Probst, Glen, Spreitz, and Jung (2010) described an evaluation of the social validity of the parenting intervention Stepping Stones Triple P (SSTP). In this evaluation, 33 masters-level psychology students viewed one of the program resources and rated the strategies of quiet time and time out as lacking in both ethical acceptability and practical a...
One of the most promising ways to increase well-being is to engage in valued and enjoyable activities. Behavioral activation (BA), an intervention approach most commonly associated with the treatment of depression, is consistent with this recommendation and can easily be adapted for non-clinical populations. This study reports on a meta-analysis of...
Stepping Stones Triple P (SSTP) is a system of behavioural family support designed for use with families of children with developmental disabilities. This session will focus on the (Level 3) primary care variant of SSTP. This intervention was designed to suit the needs of families with a discrete number of specific concerns regarding their child’s...
Reviews the book, Behavioral activation for depression: A clinician's guide by Christopher R. Martell, Sona Dimidjian, and Ruth Herman-Dunn. The authors have elaborated upon, revised, and in some places simplified their behavioral activation treatment approach, as it was described by Martell et al. (2001). The result is a practical and usable guide...
Behavioral activation (BA) treatments for depression require patients to increase overt behavior to bring them in contact with reinforcing environmental contingencies. This meta-analysis sought to identify all randomized controlled studies of BA, determine the effect of this approach, and examine the differential effectiveness of variants. Thirty-f...
Using 16 non-clinical adults from the community, this study examined the effects on well-being of a group intervention consisting of a 4-week behavioural activation component followed by a 3-week mindfulness component, finishing with an integrating closure session. Results from intention-to-treat analyses showed moderate and significant improvement...