Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

There is a growing body of research aimed at understanding the nature of mental contamination (i.e., feelings of internal dirtiness that arise in the absence of direct contact with a contaminant) in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Though recent studies suggest that this may exist in other anxiety disorders (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder; PTSD), less is known about it in contexts outside of OCD. Similarly, the measurement tools for quantifying its severity, and treatment targets for alleviating its effects have been developed almost exclusively using OCD samples. There is, therefore, a knowledge gap with regard to how the nature, measurement, and treatment of mental contamination, differ and/or conform across anxiety disorders. The proposed program of study is aimed at understanding the experience mental contamination in PTSD, updating and validating the Vancouver Obsessional Compulsive Inventory - Mental Contamination Scale, and piloting an experiment to test a new possible treatment target for reducing mental contamination.