Dr. Carly Johnco is a Macquarie University Research Fellow and Clinical Psychologist at Macquarie University. Her research is focused on understanding the cognitive and environmental mechanisms that impact the development and treatment of anxiety (and related disorders) in childhood and older age. She has published more than 55 journal articles and book chapters and received over $3.5million in research funding.

She has received several awards, including the 2019 Australian Psychological Society Early Career Research Award, 2018 Australian Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies Tracey Goodall Early Career Award, and 2017 Macquarie University Early Career Researcher of the Year Award.

Anxiety is underpinned by beliefs that particular situations are dangerous. Exposure therapy is the most effective treatment and involves repeatedly confronting the situation (e.g., speech) in the absence of negative outcomes (e.g., humiliation), in order to change the associations that we remember. When a memory is recalled, it becomes labile for a window of time (called the reconsolidation window), before being restabilised in long-term memory. Experimental research has shown that new information presented during this window can alter the underlying memory, reducing (or even eradicating) underlying fears. Despite promising effects in laboratory studies, the potential for memory reconsolidation mechanisms to permanently eliminate real-world fears has received little attention.

This study will investigate whether behavioural manipulation of normal memory reconsolidation processes during exposure therapy can improve outcomes for youth with anxiety disorders and prevent the return of fear. Youth with clinically significant fears of public speaking will be randomly allocated to one of three treatment groups. All youth will receive a single intensive exposure therapy session, and we will compare the effect of receiving treatment within the memory reconsolidation window, after the memory reconciliation window has closed, or without activation of the memory reconciliation window. Reductions in anxiety symptoms will be assessed at the end of treatment and several months later.

Co-Investigators: Professor Viviana Wuthrich, Dr Ella Oar, Professor Ron Rapee and Professor Allison Waters