Call for participants

Toward acceptance of unwanted intrusive thoughts: Exploring the impact of metacognitive rationales for obsessive-compulsive phenomena on experiential avoidance

Max Eames

As a research project within my doctoral studies, I’m looking to find people to share, at the same time as likeminded others, their reactions to a set of podcasts focused on metacognitions which potentially serve to augment what has been learned through psychoeducation in therapy. Ethical approval for this research project has been granted by the University of East London’s Ethics and Integrity Sub-Committee (EISC).

Specifically, this project seeks a small group of participants who are familiar with experiencing exposure and response-prevention (ERP), the preferred treatment protocol for obsessive-compulsive phenomena. We are interested in people (a) whose lived experience includes such phenomena and (b) whose past psychotherapy sessions included an introduction to the habituation exercises used in ERP. This would be the case regardless of whether or not they describe themselves as having obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

If such people are interested, we would firstly ask them to undergo an initial screening, which would involve filling in some basic demographic information and a small number of questionnaires, doing so by means of a provided ‘participant code’ (rather than providing their name). It is likely we will select from respondents at this first stage, to a smaller group of participants who would be invited to participate in an online group discussion for approximately 90 minutes. We would do this by contacting participants to confirm willingness to be part of, and then arrange, the online group discussions.

In order not to impinge on the progress of any present experience of therapy, we seek individuals who have concluded their treatment at least 12 weeks before they participate in this project.

We’d be grateful if potential participants were to get in touch via my PhD researcher email, which is u1252559@uel.ac.uk. Doing so keeps any correspondence in the same place and within the university’s secure network.

Finally, as I am aiming to run the study during July 2022, time is of the essence with this project. I would be grateful if interested participants were to enquire at the earliest possible opportunity.

Best regards,

Max Eames

Study end date - 31 December 2022