Alan Underwood

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Alan is a Specialist Clinical Psychologist working in medium secure forensic services and a course tutor at UCL on the PG Cert in Low Intensity Psychological Interventions. Prior to completing clinical training at UCL he  worked at Sutton and Merton IAPT as a PWP and Team Coordination (Senior PWP) and delivered CBT informed low intensity interventions.   He has interests in forensic mental health,psychological therapy, anxiety disorders (particularly GAD), intervention design and evaluation.

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Guided self help and cCBT for OCD: OCTET finds low adherence and uncertain fidelity

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Alan Underwood reports on the new OCTET trial published last week, which fails to find any support for the use of low-intensity guided self-help or computerised CBT for people with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).

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OCD risk may increase following perinatal complications

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Alan Underwood summarises a population based cohort study of 2.4 million Swedish children, which highlights links between perinatal risk factors such as smoking during pregnancy, and later development of obsessive compulsive disorder.

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Antidepressants and psychotherapy for OCD in adults: network meta-analysis

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Alan Underwood summarises a recent network meta-analysis of medication and talking treatments for OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) in adults.

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Implementation intentions: helping people achieve their goals

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Alan Underwood highlights a new meta-analysis, which suggests that people with mental health problems can benefit if they are prompted to form if-then plans, which specify when, where and how they will achieve their goals.

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Lifetime prevalence of anxiety disorders in people with bipolar disorder

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Alan Underwood appraises a recent meta-analysis that finds anxiety disorders are three times more common in people with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

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Faith based CBT for depression and anxiety: review highlights a lack of good quality evidence

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Alan Underwood considers a new systematic review and meta analysis, which highlights the lack of evidence for faith based CBT in treating people with depression or anxiety disorders.

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Experience sampling and ecological momentary assessment for studying anxiety disorders

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Alan Underwood publishes his debut Mental Elf blog on a narrative review of experience sampling and ecological momentary assessment for studying the lives of people with anxiety disorders.

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