· The summer of 2021 is still in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. Covering mental health aspects of the pandemic, the British daily The Guardian published a story on MD featuring ICMDR’s scientific director, Dr. Nirit Soffer-Dudek. The story by Amanda McCracken (June 25, 2021) was titled: “How the pandemic got us addicted to longing 7 and why it’s bad for us” can be read here
· Talking about MD and the media, the documentary 'The Daydreamers' (UK) by Thomas Renckens was screened on July 18th at the Doc.Boston documentary film festival. The film continues to gain recognition won the Best Health Film Award for 2021 at the Ghent Viewpoint Film Festival in Belgium.
· We are very pleased to learn that MD continues to attract students who focus on it for their graduate research and final art and design projects. For example, the British newspaper The Currier reports: Remarkable’ University of Dundee (Scotland, UK) art students graduate after their degree show is cancelled. Click here and scroll down to listen to Rhiannon Dewar, who graduated in fine arts, specialising in painting and film. She said: “I am trying my best to give an experience of what it’s like to have Maladaptive Daydreaming Syndrome. I have this and it’s part of my autism.”
· Another important contribution to the field of MD is the University of Parma (Italy) thesis by Erica Bisella (2021): Maladaptive Daydreaming e stili difensivi: uno studio correlazionale (Maladaptive Daydreaming and Defensive Styles: A Correlational Study).
· A groundbreaking randomized clinical trial for the treatment of MD was recently presented to the University of Haifa as Oren Herscu’s doctoral dissertation. We are looking forward to the publication of Oren’s data in a peer-reviewed journal. The dissertation was titled: Treatment for Maladaptive Daydreaming: A pioneering study on the development and evaluation of an online intervention based on mindfulness meditation and self-monitoring.
Click above to review the abstract of this ambitious Ph.D. work. Congratulations, Oren!
· While the COVID pandemic continues to disrupt international scientific meetings, three MD research papers were presented online in virtual conferences by ICMDR researchers. See their linked references below.
· As important as it is to publish MD research data in international English language scientific journals, we place high value in disseminating information on MD locally in indigenous languages. One such example is Faruk Caner’s research on Examining the Concept of Maladaptive Daydreaming with the Film Analysis Method. It was published in Psikiyatride Guncel Yaklasimlar - Current Approaches in Psychiatry 13(Suppl 1), 27-39. Doi: 10.18863/pgy.877490 (In Turkish. English abstract available).
· Also, for the French speakers among you, we discovered Rêverie Compulsive, a French MD resource portal: https://www.reverie-compulsive.fr
Have a healthy and enjoyable summer!