Sleep disruption is highly common in the United States and this difficulty can have a powerful effect on our well-being. We are currently aware of numerous behaviors, termed sleep hygiene factors, which are shown to disturb sleep. What is unclear is the extent to which these behaviors are problematic in the community. To answer this question we used a nationwide internet-based sample, and asked good and poor sleepers how frequently they performed these sleep-related behaviors. Although sleep hygiene behaviors were generally good, individuals reporting an uncomfortable nighttime temperature and those sleeping in a noisy environment were more than twice as likely to report poor sleep. Poor sleepers were also significantly more likely to engage in activating or arousing behaviors near bedtime. In particular, poor sleepers were prone to 'worry, plan, or think about important matters' in the bed. This investigation did not find increased usage of nighttime caffeine, alcohol or nicotine among poor sleepers.

Gellis, L.A., & Lichstein, K.L. (2009). Sleep hygiene practices of good of good and poor sleepers in the United States : An Internet-based study. Behavior Therapy, 40, 1-9.

 

Exposure therapy helps to reduce behavioral avoidance that strengthens anxiety symptoms through systematic contact with a feared situation, object, thought, or memory. Although this treatment is very effective for many disorders, few therapists use it. This is partially due to concerns that exposure therapy is ‘cruel’ and unethical. However, a review of the literature suggests that exposure therapy is safe, tolerable, and even preferred by many patients. Despite such attributes, exposure therapy may place patients at greater risk than other forms of psychotherapy. Therefore, exposure therapy must be conducted by a competent clinician. Among other things, competency requires a comprehensive evaluation of whether the risk associated with exposure is acceptable. Acceptable risks of doing exposure may require some traditional therapy boundaries to be crossed but not violated. For example, exposure therapy may require sessions that are conducted outside of the office, but only if this is in the patient’s best interest. Consideration of this and other ethical concerns will allow for a safe context in which exposure therapy can be successfully utilized.

Olatunji, B. O., Deacon, B. J., & Abramowitz, J. S. (2009). The cruelest cure? Ethical issues in the implementation of exposure-based treatments. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 16, 172-180.

 

Benzodiazepines (BZs) are often used for the treatment of anxiety disorders and many clients presenting for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) are already using them. Research suggests several good reasons for clients to consider discontinuation, including dampening benefit from CBT for anxiety, and the preference of many clients for nonmedical strategies for managing anxiety. Most clients require assistance in successfully discontinuing BZs, and this paper offers a brief step-by-step self-help handout for doing so. The handout helps clients decide whether they are ready to attempt BZ discontinuation, helps them plan the discontinuation effort, and suggests specific coping strategies for dealing with common discontinuation symptoms, including how to manage typical thoughts surrounding BZ discontinuation. The handout is especially useful after the client has experienced some success in reducing anxiety with CBT. The clinical use of the handout is discussed and suggestions offered for integrating it effectively into CBT for anxiety.

Ahmed, M., Westra, H.A., & Stewart, S.H. (2008). A self-help handout for benzodiazepine discontinuation using cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, 15, 317-324.

 

Beginning February 2nd a link will be provided to ABCT’s submission site. Please read the instructions below, or, if you are already familiar with them, you may click here: http://abct2010.abstractcentral.com

Some highlights of this Scholar One system are:

• You will be able to save your work and complete the submission later.
• You will be able to return to completed submissions to verify information and insure that you do not submit the same material several times.
• You will not need ABCT ID numbers.
• Instead the system prompts the user to create his or her own username and password. . These can be whatever you choose. The system will not be loaded with ABCT member contact information. If you submitted any event last year please use that login and password.
• When entering information for yourself and for your coauthors you will be instructed to do a name search. If their information has already been input because of a separate submission, it will come up. Only if information on that person does not come up are you instructed to input name and contact information.

This system does not interact with the ABCT database.

• Correcting the information on the submission system will not affect the ABCT database.
• If your ABCT information is incorrect, please visit our website at www.abct.org.
• Access the Member Log-in on the homepage and enter your ABCT login (ID number) and password.
• Click the link “Update Membership Profile” to update your information.

Please read the following guidelines and have the necessary information handy.

To enter a new abstract you will choose "Create a New Submission" on the sidebar.

This system will allow you to enter part of the information, and come back to finish your submission. To view abstracts that are in progress or already submitted choose "View Submissions".

After submission, you may log back onto the system and view your proof and any emails sent to you by going to the "View Submissions" page.

1) DEADLINE: The deadline for electronic submission of abstracts is March 2, 11:59 pm EST. All submissions will be sent out for review after that date. Decisions will be distributed in early May.

2) ABSTRACT LIMIT: Please do not submit more than six abstracts. In order to prevent scheduling conflicts and allow new investigators adequate opportunity to present their work, you may NOT be First Author, Chair, Discussant, or Panelist on more than FOUR presentations. If more than four sessions are accepted on which you are listed in one of those capacities you will be asked to step down on the session(s) which present scheduling issues.

3) INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD: A statement of assurance that the research was approved by an Institutional Review Board and followed proper consent and human participant protection must accompany all submissions. A checkbox is provided to acknowledge that all research meets these guidelines

4) CATEGORY: You will be asked to choose from a list of categories. These categories are used to assign reviewers as well as to schedule events.

5) AWARD: Those submitting posters will be asked to indicate if the first author was a student at the time the research was conducted. Those accepted posters with student first authors will be considered for the Elsie Ramos Student Poster Award.

6) CHARACTER LIMIT: The word count/ character count varies for different types of submissions. Please verify your character count prior to submission. In Word, Tools includes a Word Count function which includes both word count and character count.

• For Poster abstracts there is a limit of 500 words which translates to 3,300 characters including spaces.
• For Clinical Round Tables and Panel Discussions there is a limit of 350 words which translates to 2,300 characters.
• For Symposia for the overall summary abstract there is a limit of 500 words which translates to 3,300 characters and for individual paper abstracts there is a limit of 400 words which translates to 2,600 characters.

7) SPECIAL CHARACTERS and FORMATTING: If you copy and paste the title and/or body from your word processor, special characters should transfer, but formatting will not transfer. You can insert special characters and/or formatting tags using the character palette. To access the palette, click on the "Special Characters" button located on the Title/Body page.

8) TITLE: The title should be entered in mixed case. PLEASE DO NOT enter the title in all capital letters.
Please do not repeat the title or the authors in the body of the abstract text box.

9) AUTHORS: Please be prepared to enter all authors in the order they should appear in the heading of the abstract. If you (the Contact Author) are not the Presenter on an abstract, you will need to provide contact information on the Presenter.

For symposia, rather than entering Chair(s) and Discussant first, symposium Chair(s) and Discussant should be entered with the "Overall Summary" drop-down option. Up to two Co-Chairs are allowed and one Discussant is allowed Authors will have to be added for each presentation of which they are a part. For example, if a person is the first author of one paper and the third co-author on another paper, s/he will have to be added under EACH presentation. If the symposium Chair is also an author on one of the presentations, s/he will have to be added as an author for that presentation.

You will be asked for each author’s ABCT category so please verify with each author whether they are a current member of the Association, and if so, what level, i.e., full member, new professional member, student member, or emeritus member. If they are not a current ABCT member are they a nonmember, or a nonmember student?

10) INSTITUTIONS: Enter up to two institutional affiliations per author. Do not enter departments. You do not need to enter institutions in a particular order to be able to designate author affiliations.

Please note that new this year you will be asked for Affiliations in the step prior to entering authors. Then you will be asked to associate the authors with the Affiliations. This is meant to streamline the system and allow you to enter an affiliation one time for multiple authors.

11) KEY WORDS: Up to three key words should be selected.

12) ABSTRACT PROOF: A proof will be displayed showing you the information which will be distributed to reviewers. Carefully check the proof of your abstract. If you find errors, return to the appropriate page by clicking on the page name in the sidebar menu, and make your corrections.

13) SUBMITTING YOUR ABSTRACT: If you have not completed all required sections/items you will not be able to submit your abstract. When all required information is entered, the "submit" button will appear at the bottom.

14) Start by clicking here: http://abct2010.abstractcentral.com