Intervention research across the life span

New development of treatments

The high demand for and limited supply of psychotherapeutic services justifies the need to develop treatments that are both effective and efficient. Increasing the efficiency of treatment for disorders with a high prevalence, such as anxiety disorders, would have a particularly positive impact on the supply situation. Our research group has therefore been working for several years on adapting already well-evaluated methods with proven effectivity for the treatment of phobic disorders for the use in large group one session formats. So far, we have demonstrated the feasibility of such one-session large group treatments for a variety of situational fears and observed effect sizes comparable to those of individual treatments for most of these treatments.  Additional areas for new developments include online sex therapy, avatar therapy, cognitive bias modification, online interventions to mitigate negative effects of excessive social media use, the promotion of positive mental health and self-efficacy as well as manualized treatments for childhood separation anxiety disorder.