We decided to organize the wealth of information this month under subheadings. It may facilitate your reading. So here we go:
New scientific publications
This Israeli paper, led by ICMDR's scientific director Dr. Soffer-Dudek, is the first systematic clinical evaluation of the prevalence of MD. Like several other internalizing psychiatric syndromes, they found an MD point-prevalence of 2.5% in an Israeli sample. This result and the Non-normal nature of item distribution support the validity of MD as a psychological disorder, which should be considered a potential addition to future psychiatric diagnostic manuals.
Theodor‐Katz, N., Somer, E., Hesseg, R. M., & Soffer‐Dudek, N. (2022). Could immersive daydreaming underlie an attention deficit? The prevalence and characteristics of maladaptive daydreaming in individuals with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.2335520
Maladaptive daydreaming (MD) entails excessive immersion and engagement in complex fantasy worlds, causing distress and impairing functioning. Maladaptive Daydreamers often report that existing diagnostic labels are unhelpful for them. Previous studies reported high rates of comorbid ADHD among persons with MD, raising the question of their separateness. This study explored whether MD differs essentially from ADHD by examining an ADHD sample, hypothesizing a much lower incidence of MD. Per the hypothesis, only 20.5% of the ADHD sample met the proposed diagnostic criteria for MD. This sub-group presented increased depression, loneliness, and lower self‐esteem than ADHD-only participants.
This paper produced an incredible media buzz that we will describe later in this newsletter.
In this Hungarian study by ICMDRs Dr. Ágnes Zsila's team, data showed that high levels of maladaptive daydreaming and engagement seeking were strong predictors of high levels of celebrity worship for both single women and those in a relationship. Personal contact with a favorite celebrity predicted higher celebrity worship levels only for women in a relationship. Moreover, single women obtained significantly higher scores on the measure of celebrity worship than those women who reported being in a relationship, controlling for age and educational level. Women who scored extremely high on celebrity worship were significantly more likely to be maladaptive daydreamers than women who scored lower on celebrity worship. These findings provide a nuanced picture of individual differences in celebrity worship.
In this Turkish study by ICMDR's Prof. Barış Metin's team, the authors showed that the reliability, content, and convergent validity of the MDS-16-TR are sufficient, and the scale is suitable for use in research with the population of Turkey.
Grants
ICMDR's Dr. Ramiro Figueiredo Catelan from Brazil won a post-doctoral grant from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for his research project titled Maladaptive daydreaming and emotion dysregulation:
Validation of measurement tools, a profile description, and associated factors in clinical and non-clinical samples. Ramiro will be conducting his research at the Institute of Psychiatry of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Ramiro is probably the first scientist to receive a competitive research grant for the study of MD. Parabéns, Ramiro!
Measures
The MDS-16 is now available in 40 languages. The most recent translation is into Lithuanian.
Here it is. We would like to thank Gabija Nabažaitė, Kalbos redagavimas, Eglė Patinskaitė, and Gytis Širvinskas for their hard work on this project.
The Structured Clinical Interview for Maladaptive Daydreaming (SCIMD) is now available in Turkish and called: Uyumsuz Hayal Kurma için Yapılandırılmış Klinik Görüşme (UHK-YKG).
It will be utilized by Prof. Dr. Barış Metin and clinical psychologist Buse Göçmen in their new electroencephalography study of MD at Üsküdar University in Istanbul, Turkey.
Lectures
Israel: On May 11th, The Israel Psychoanalytic Society broadcasted an online lecture titled: Waking up from a daydream: Thoughts on daydreaming as a mental refuge to its members and an interested audience. The address, delivered in Hebrew by Anat Bar'am, was part of a series titled An open window to psychoanalysis.
Student work
Canada: An anthology of creative non-fiction produced by Arts and Science students at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, titled A bend in the Sky, featured a story by Sophia Barrie titled "(Maladaptive) Daydreaming through life." Click here and scroll to page 13 to read it.
Britain: Penny Clark Lapenna completed her master's degree program in Creative Writing at the University of Exeter. Her dissertation was titled 'Impossible Daydreams: an exploration'. You can read it here.
United States: Undergraduate students at Winthrop University in South Carolina, USA, presented their research in a poster titled The Role of Stress and Trauma in Immersive Daydreaming and Parasocial Relationships. Read more.
Press
Two Italian magazines published articles on MD
"La mente é meravigliosa" (The mind is wonderful) is an Italian online magazine offering news on psychology, neuroscience, personal development, culture, and well-being with more than 5.1 million monthly visits and over 1.1 million likes for their Facebook page. It came to our attention that they had published a story on MD. Here it is.
Valeria Franco, president of Maladaptive Daydreaming Italia, was recently interviewed for the Italian fashion magazine F in a story on MD titled Malati di Immaginazione. I would translate this as Imagination sick.
Media Coverage of the MD in ADHD paper
OK, back to Theodor-Katz et al.'s paper in the Journal of Clinical Psychology (Could immersive daydreaming underlie a deficit in attention?).When we first wrote the article, we knew it would raise considerable interest because it challenged the field of ADHD by claiming that in specific individuals diagnosed with ADHD, inattention is probably better explained by MD. We now know that 77% of people with MD have clinical inattention problems. We also now know of a subgroup of individuals with ADHD in which inattention may be a consequence of MD. The news traveled fast, and numerous media outlets quickly published the information. Below are links to the various media outlets that reported the scientific communication.
ADDitude is the leading source of news and expert advice in America on attention deficit disorder and related disorders, with over 900,000 subscribers. ADDitude has both a printed and online version. Their report on the MD-ADHD study was featured on their front page (see photo) and can now be read here.
Our study was reported by PsyPost, a psychology and neuroscience news website dedicated to informing the latest research on human behavior, cognition, and society. The publication covers the latest discoveries in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, sociology, and similar fields. PsyPost has over 3 million readers and a quarter of million Twitter followers.
The PsyPost story was uploaded to the Science community on Reddit. This subreddit is comprised of 27.5 million members.
Their report on our MD-ADHD study rapidly reached the top list of the most endorsed news items (see photo) with 1600 comments and endorsed by over 28,000 readers.
ScienceAlert is an independently run online publication and news source that publishes articles featuring scientific research, discoveries, and outcomes. It has a readership that can reach 26.5 million per month. Their report was titled 'Maladaptive Daydreaming' Could Be a Distinct Psychiatric Disorder, Scientists Claim'.
The New Daily is an online, non-paywalled Australian newspaper with 1.7million subscribers. It too published a story on our study.
Here is a story titled Being constantly on the moon: a mental illness? reported on OICanadian, a gaming news website.
The same report was also featured on the French popular medical information website Pourquoi Docteur under the headline Etre constamment dans la lune : une maladie mentale?
Psychomédia is another French language psychology and mental health wesite with about 75,000 unique monthly visitors. Their headline states the main research question: “Trouble de rêverie inadaptée ou de déficit d'attention (TDAH)?” (Maladaptive Daydreaming or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD)?).
¿Qué es la ensoñación inadaptada? (What is maladaptive daydreaming?) asks the Spanish language headline of the report on our study. This article was posted on the website of Corporación Venezolana de Televisión, a state-run television station based in Caracas, Venezuela.
Last but not least, Dr. Jonathan D. Raskin, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and counselor education at the State University of New York at New Paltz and the chair of the Psychology Department, wrote an article in Psychology Today, in response to our research paper. In his article, Raskin regards MD as regular daydreaming, which he sees as adaptive and meaningful, even when distressing or excessive. His main point was that pathologizing daydreaming reflects the "DSM-ing" of everyday life.
In response to Raskin's article, Dr. Nirit Soffer-Dudek, a co-author of the paper and ICMDR's scientific director, wrote a rebuttal titled Why We Should Take "Maladaptive Daydreaming Seriously: Daydreaming isn't a mental disorder—except for cases in which it is.
That's quite a buzz for a scientific paper. Isn't it?
On a lighter note, let us just end this voluminous newsletter with information about a new MD blog: Empowered Daydreamer by Anne Borcherds from Britain. Check it out.
If you found a link that does not work, please drop us a note.
See you next time!
.