Therapy Online Plus (TOP+) - Comparing Two Online Interventions for Dealing With Challenging Life Circumstances

Summary

Psychotherapy interventions can roughly be grouped into compensation-oriented strategies (compensating for and and modifying personal deficits of patients) versus capitalization-oriented strategies (building on patients' personal strengths). Improvement of emotion regulation (compensation-oriented) as well as the activation of resilience (capitalisation-oriented) have been identified as important transdiagnostic factors in the treatment of mental disorders. The study aims to compare compensation vs. capitalization strategies by using two online programs, centered either on emotion-regulation ("REMOTION") or on activating resilience ("Res-Up!"). Res-Up! and REMOTION are administered as stand-alone intervention or as add-on treatment to standard psychotherapy.

Participants will be randomly assigned to three study conditions (Res-Up!, REMOTION, waiting control group). Outcomes are assessed at baseline, after six weeks and after twelve weeks.

Conditions

• Mental Disorders
• Online-Intervention

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Res-Up!

Res-Up! is an internet-based intervention focusing on patients' strengths and positive experiences that have effects on distress, protective factors and quality of life. The intervention is based on the Personal Model of Resilience (PMR; Padesky and Mooney, 2012), which is a positive intervention that utilizes patients' strengths to overcome problems.The PMR activates resilient emotions, thoughts, metaphors, images and behaviors in four steps during five sessions about the aquisition of resilient strategies and their use in daily life. A variety of elements based on different psychotherapy approaches (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Emotion Focused Therapy, Positive Therapy etc.) are integrated in the program. Participants should work through one module per week. The intervention is conducted as I-CBT via the platform Minddistrict.Res-Up! is administered as a standalone or an add-on treatment to psychotherapy.

BEHAVIORAL

REMOTION

REMOTION is an internet-based intervention aimed at transdiagnostically reducing symptom severity and improving emotion regulation of psychotherapy patients. The structure of REMOTION is based on the idea of an extended process model of emotion regulation as postulated by J.J. Gross (2015). The program includes the following modules: introduction, psychoeducation, identification, selection, implementation and modification. A variety of elements based on different psychotherapy approaches (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Emotion Focused Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy etc.) are integrated in the program. Participants should work through one module per week. REMOTION is administered as a standalone or an add-on treatment to psychotherapy.

OTHER

Wait-Control Group

In the waiting control group participants will answer questionnaires and they will gain access to either REMOTION or Res-Up! after twelve weeks.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Bern

  collaborator OTHER

• Ulrike Willutzki

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Ulrike Willutzki, Prof. Dr. · Witten/Herdecke University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2020-04-13

Primary Completion

2022-07-31

Completion

2023-04-30

Countries

• Germany

Study Locations