What are the circadian disturbances underlying depression vulnerability? How are they related to mood, cognition and sleep ?

The Leiden Index of Depression Sensitivity (LEIDS) measures cognitive reactivity (CR) to sadness, an aspect of cognitive vulnerability to depression, conceptually similar to rumination.

How do genetic and environmental factors make us vulnerable to depression?

What are the social and neural mechanisms that contribute to fluctuations in self-esteem in healthy adolescents and adolescents with depression?

To investigate the effectiveness of an online self-help programme for people with HIV and depressive symptoms.

We found that, next to the effectiveness of the intervention, it’s also very likely that the intervention is cost-effective compared to attention only.

I want to understand the overlap between physical health, mental health, and healthy aging and whether/how stress (behaviorally and biologically) may tie these concepts together.

Depression has traditionally been linked to increased inflammation. Innovative research by psychologist Eiko Fried refutes this popular assumption. He shows that specific depression symptoms such as sleeping problems explain this relationship. Publication in Psychological Medicine .

Evidence that the right diet can prevent or alleviate depression is weak. In literature reviews on the subject, the authors often reach strong conclusions, nonetheless. This is what Florian Thomas-Odenthal, a master’s student in Psychology at Leiden University, discovered in his thesis research. Publication…

What is the effectiveness of (booklet or online) self-help programmes for people with somatic stressors and depressive symptoms? What works best for whom? How to improve motivation and adherence?

With a starting grant of the European Research Council (ERC) for promising young researchers, Eiko Fried aims to develop a personalised early warning system, that will reliably forecast depression before it occurs. Fried (Clinical Psychology) talks about this WARN-D, promising to radically transform…

What role do parent-child interactions play in the development, maintenance and treatment of depression in young people?

... which build on self-regulation and stress-regulation theories and considers the modification of cognitions as a mediator of therapeutic change.

The aim of this project is to investigate the (cost)effectiveness of two innovative forms of trauma-focused therapy for patients with childhood abuse related PTSD. The ultimate goal is to improve quality of care and contribute to treatment innovation for this severely ill target population.

PhD Defence

PhD Defence

PhD Defence

PhD Defence

Stress, burnout, depression – these conditions pervade all levels of our society. Children and students suffer from constant pressure to achieve; at the international level, tensions lead to short-sighted actions; and, at the personal level, stress affects our health and social environment. How do our…

CERQ is a questionnaire measuring cognitive coping strategies developed by Dr. Nadia Garnefski and Dr. Vivian Kraaij.

Is blended care a feasible and effective treatment method for social anxiety in adolescence?

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Social and Behavoriural Sciences with Macquarie University in Australia.

Primary Objective: The primary aim of the proposed RCT is to evaluate whether LF-TLP in blended form as an indicated prevention for anxiety complaints is more (cost-) effective than TAU according to the NHG guideline Anxiety. We hypothesize that in comparison to TAU, LF-TLP will result in a significantly…

Prof. Bernet Elzinga (Clinical Psychology Unit) is one of the seven scientists from the Leiden University who has received a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from NWO. Vici is one of the largest grants for individual scientists in the Netherlands. The funding will enable her to do research for the next…

What is the role of stress and stress-related hormones in emotion regulation?

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Can SMILE, our multi-component intervention, which combines cognitive-behavioural therapy for insomnia, mindfulness, stress, and lifestyle components, improve sleep quality? Can it also improve mood and quality of life and prevent depression and anxiety in the long term?

PhD Defence

Toward optimal measurement and greater understanding of youth cognition in school refusal and cognitive behavioural therapy outcome

Welcome to the Social Anxiety and Specific Phobia (SASP) Research Group!