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- Title
An Empirical Study of Defensive Avoidance in Paranoia.
- Authors
Moutoussis, Michael; El-Deredy, Wael; Bentall, Richard P.
- Abstract
Background: There is controversy as to whether psychological defensive avoidance is associated with paranoia. Aims: To elucidate whether “Poor-me” paranoid patients, who believe that the persecution they perceive is undeserved, show more prominent avoidance of negative thoughts about themselves than healthy and clinical controls. Method: The act of avoidance of aversive mental contents was assessed in 27 healthy controls and 48 patients with poor-me, bad-me (perceived to be deserved) or no paranoia. Defensive avoidance was assessed via established questionnaires, a novel task based on self-discrepancy theory and research-clinician ratings. Results: Participants in all groups showed substantial levels of verbal defensive avoidance. Paranoia was associated with reduced self-reported tolerance of negative mental contents (high Experiential Avoidance, EA). Contrary to our hypotheses, poor-me and bad-me patients showed similar EA. All participant groups showed similar levels of verbal defensive avoidance. Conclusion: The findings do not support an association of psychological avoidance with paranoia.
- Subjects
PARANOIA; DEFENSIVENESS (Psychology); AVOIDANCE (Psychology); SELF-discrepancy theory; EMPIRICAL research; PSYCHOLOGICAL research
- Publication
Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapy, 2015, Vol 43, Issue 2, p182
- ISSN
1352-4658
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1017/S1352465813000805