Session P4 I Day 2 Closing Plenary I Keynote Presentation 4
| Saturday, May 17, 2025 |
| 4:15 PM - 5:00 PM |
| Arena 2 (Plenary) |
Overview
Keynote Presenter | Professor Emily Holmes (VIRTUAL PRESENTATION)
Details
Professor; Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University
Presenter
Emily Holmes
Professor, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health
Uppsala University
Adventuring into imagination –from interventions for psychological disorders to technology
4:15 PM - 5:15 PMAbstract
Imagination and mental imagery: Mental imagery occurs when we see in our minds eye or hear with our mind’s ear, and so forth. It is a wonderful human ability that allows us to visualize the future and recall our last holiday. However, if the content of our mental imagery is negative, it can be associated with distress and at times psychopathology.
Intrusive image-based memories can “flash backwards” to past trauma taking the form of vivid mental imagery. Mental imagery strongly influences emotions, motivation, and behaviour.
Reducing intrusive memories after trauma. Our question is how we change the mechanism so unwanted images stop coming to mind. Today we will discuss creating a treatment for intrusive imagery as a single symptom (compared to studying a full heterogeneous mental health diagnosis like PTSD). This generated a novel intervention approach - the idea of working with intrusive mental images of trauma using concurrent tasks (including a computer game called Tetris®!), while moving research ideas between the lab and the clinic.
An imagery-competing task intervention (ICTI) “approach aims to both (a) to help prevent the build-up of unwanted intrusive memories soon after a traumatic event; and (b) reduce the reoccurrence of intrusive memories at longer times interval, days, week and months after trauma. We discuss recent clinical trials of a remotely delivered version of the intervention for healthcare staff who had repeated and ongoing trauma working with COVID-19 patients. The ICTI approach involves at least 3 steps (i) imagery recall, (ii) mental rotation and (iii) sustained visuospatial task such as Tetris® computer game play. But please note just playing Tetris® alone will not work!
Mental health science is an umbrella term to cover the many disciplines, including psychology, medicine, social sciences, and arts, and with a vision for science-informed psychological treatment innovation. More broadly, there is great potential for imagining adaptions and innovations in psychological treatments – today raising just one example with mental imagery and technology.
Website for publications and more information: https://emilyholmes.net/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-holmes-3400602bb/
Intrusive image-based memories can “flash backwards” to past trauma taking the form of vivid mental imagery. Mental imagery strongly influences emotions, motivation, and behaviour.
Reducing intrusive memories after trauma. Our question is how we change the mechanism so unwanted images stop coming to mind. Today we will discuss creating a treatment for intrusive imagery as a single symptom (compared to studying a full heterogeneous mental health diagnosis like PTSD). This generated a novel intervention approach - the idea of working with intrusive mental images of trauma using concurrent tasks (including a computer game called Tetris®!), while moving research ideas between the lab and the clinic.
An imagery-competing task intervention (ICTI) “approach aims to both (a) to help prevent the build-up of unwanted intrusive memories soon after a traumatic event; and (b) reduce the reoccurrence of intrusive memories at longer times interval, days, week and months after trauma. We discuss recent clinical trials of a remotely delivered version of the intervention for healthcare staff who had repeated and ongoing trauma working with COVID-19 patients. The ICTI approach involves at least 3 steps (i) imagery recall, (ii) mental rotation and (iii) sustained visuospatial task such as Tetris® computer game play. But please note just playing Tetris® alone will not work!
Mental health science is an umbrella term to cover the many disciplines, including psychology, medicine, social sciences, and arts, and with a vision for science-informed psychological treatment innovation. More broadly, there is great potential for imagining adaptions and innovations in psychological treatments – today raising just one example with mental imagery and technology.
Website for publications and more information: https://emilyholmes.net/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-holmes-3400602bb/
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Emily A. Holmes, PhD, DClinPsych, is a Professor in the Department of Women's and Children's Health at Uppsala University, where she leads the PERCEPT— Mental Imagery and Mental Health group. Trained as a clinical psychologist at Royal Holloway University of London, she also holds a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Cambridge. She is the recipient of several awards such as the American Psychological Association and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and serves on the Board of Trustees for the MQ Foundation.
Her research focuses on intrusive memories and mental imagery that arise involuntarily after trauma, particularly following traumatic events like accidents, childbirth, war, or the COVID-19 pandemic. Her research currently involves an innovative approach to reduce these "flashbacks" through a digital and scalable imagery-competing task intervention (ICTI), which aims to reduce flashbacks and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
For more information and publications visit her website: https://emilyholmes.net/
Session chair
Catriona Davis-McCabe
Australian Psychological Society
