SOCIAbLE · Social Cognitive Interventions following Adverse early Life Experiences

The affective and cognitive consequences of childhood trauma are experienced across the life span, and are associated with poorer mental and physical health outcomes in those affected. While trauma-focused psychological therapies successfully address the affective consequences of childhood trauma, the cognitive consequences have been poorly understood and managed despite being highly predictive of poorer social and occupational outcomes. SOCIAbLE is a novel psychosocial intervention that targets the cognitive difficulties associated with childhood trauma. It consists of a social cognitive skills program delivered in a virtual reality (VR) environment. VR based interventions represent a low cost and scalable method of simulating activities of daily life in a clinical setting. This project will establish whether SOCIAbLE, as a novel VR-based intervention targeting trauma-related cognitive difficulties, is feasible and beneficial to everyday function, based on data from individuals with a history of childhood trauma. Gathering and analysing this data will represent a crucial first stage in knowledge translation, forming the basis for establishing future definitive clinical trials to validate the effectiveness of this approach in patients with mental health disorders. By addressing a major untreated cause of disability, SOCIAbLE has the potential to add substantially to current clinical solutions (e.g. trauma-informed CBT targeting anxiety).