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Imaginator: a Pilot of Brief Functional Imagery Training for Self-harm

NCT02914847 · Status: UNKNOWN · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 40

Last updated 2016-10-05

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Self-harm has substantial personal impacts as well as costs on the National Health Service (NHS). Around 13-17% of young people report experiences of self-harm. In Cambridgeshire, this is a significant issue with the number of admissions to hospital for self-harm in young people being higher than the United Kingdom (UK) average. Treating underlying mental illness can lead to a reduction in self-harm, but these are long interventions for complex disorders and many people who self-harm are not under treatment for mental illness. Moreover, young people struggle to access traditional mental health services where these therapies are delivered. No short interventions specifically tailored for young people have been developed so far.

The Imaginator project aims to address the urgent need for an effective and innovative short-term therapy for self-harm in young people. The investigators will pilot a new imagery-based psychological intervention for young people aged 16-25 who experience repetitive self-harm. Mental imagery (the experience of "seeing through the mind's eye") can carry intense emotions (positive and negative), and imagining something can facilitate behaviour. Imagery-based therapies have proven useful (i) for problems that feature intense, hard to manage emotions such as those associated with self-harm, and (ii) for promoting healthy behaviour. Our new intervention called Functional Imagery Training will support young people to imagine more adaptive behaviours to cope with the emotional distress that triggers self-harm, and motivate them to reduce self-harm. Imaginator will comprise of just two sessions followed by phone support over three months.

Moreover, the investigators will address the challenge of young people accessing and staying in therapy by using a smartphone app to support the therapy, as apps are widely used and favoured by this age group. The app will enable participants to continue with the strategies they have learnt in therapy by themselves, thus ensuring a potential longer-term benefit and self-empowerment.

Conditions

  • Self-Injurious Behavior

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Functional Imagery Training (FIT)

Functional Imagery Training comprises of three elements: a) formulation of idiosyncratic drivers of self-harming behaviour and reasons for change; b) motivational interviewing combined with mental imagery techniques that enhance motivation to change the self-harm dysfunctional habit; c) formulation of goals for change (i.e. the goal is a desired behaviour alternative to self-harm) and practice of functional imagery to support goal achievement.

Sponsors & Collaborators

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
16 Years
Max Age
25 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2016-09-30
Primary Completion
2016-12-31
Completion
2017-04-30

Countries

  • United Kingdom

Study Locations

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Entities

Companies

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT02914847 on ClinicalTrials.gov