NCT05771636

Mental Imagery and Psychological Well-being

Can Mental Imagery Increase Behavioral Activation ?

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 120 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of Liege · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study aims to investigate the effects of mental imagery practice on depression, behavioral activation, psychological well-being and other processes involved in depression such as anhedonia. We use a multiple baseline design in addition to a pre-post and follow-up standardized assessment design.

Detailed description

The purpose of this study is to determine if daily practice of mental imagery improves psychological variables such as motivation, behavioral activation, depression, mood, optimism, anhedonia, and psychological well-being, and if it's combination with activity planning is more effective than activity planning alone. This study will analyze the effect of 2 mental imagery conditions (planned activity imagery, best possible self) and a control condition of activity planning alone, administered to a general population over a 2-week period. Our hypotheses are an improvement for both experimental conditions (planned activities imagery and best possible self imagery) of mood, behavioral activation, depressive symptomatology, optimism, psychological well-being, cognitive and behavioral avoidance, and anhedonia, compared to the control condition. Several studies have been able to show the effect of either imagery condition on certain variables (notably behavioral activation and mood for the planned activity imagery as well as optimism and mood for the best possible self), but the interest of our study is to assess the effect of each of the proposed protocols on a broader range of variables. This will allow us to determine the specific effect of each protocol as well as to compare their effectiveness. In this study we will recruit 120 participants, randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) mental imagery of planned activities, (2) mental imagery of best possible self, (3) planned activity control group. All participants will be asked to complete a series of standardized assessments in 4 steps (at the first meeting, at the second meeting 15 days later, and a follow-up at 1 and 3 months post-intervention). The questionnaires will assess depression, behavioral activation, mood, optimism, imagery skills, anhedonia, and psychological well-being. In each group, participants will have to think about 4 activities to be implemented within the next two weeks, and answer about 10 questions about the chosen activities (rated from 0 to 10 on a visual analogical scale). These questions evaluate, among other things, the motivation, the anticipated effort, the anticipated pleasure, and the degree of avoidance related to each activity using a visual analog scale. This questionnaire will be completed at the first meeting and also after the completion of each activity, at home. The protocol is identical for each condition except for the content of the imagery exercise or no imagery exercise for the control condition. The participants in the experimental conditions will be instructed to repeat the 5-minute imagery exercise at home every day for 2 weeks and report in a booklet everyday their rating of the imagery exercise (vividness, difficulty and their mood after the exercise). At a second meeting 2 weeks later, all participants will be asked to complete the standardized assessments again and report whether or not the planned activities were completed, as well as conduct a semi-structured interview about their experience, the feasibility and difficulty of the task. Participants will then receive a follow-up survey by e-mail at 1 and 3 months post-intervention, in which they will again be asked to complete the selected standardized questionnaires. The booklets in which they reported the questionnaires about their planned activities (all conditions) and the ratings of imagery exercise (for experimental conditions) will be brought back on that meeting.

Conditions

• Depression
• Anhedonia

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Mental Imagery	Mental Imagery consists of imagining a situation in the most vivid way possible, including all sensory modalities (visual image, sensations, smells, sounds, emotions). It can be used to act as a motivational amplifier, by pre-experimenting a situation in imagination. The best possible self imagery consists of imagining the best version possible of one's self , after accomplishing all their major life goals, in a future where everything turned out the best way possible. What does this best version of you do, in terms of actions, on an everyday basis ? The planned imagery exercise consists of rehearsing an activity in a mental way, before actually doing it. It can help to visualize the outcome of this activity and benefits it can provide to the participant before actually getting it done.
BEHAVIORAL	Control condition (activity planification)	The participant identifies 4 activities that he plans to do in the course of the next 2 weeks.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-03-01
• Primary completion: 2025-05-01
• Completion: 2025-06-01
• First posted: 2023-03-16
• Last updated: 2023-05-11

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Belgium