Mental health and clinical psychological science in the time of COVID-19: Challenges, opportunities, and a call to action.

COVID-19 presents significant social, economic, and medical challenges. Because COVID-19 has already begun to precipitate huge increases in mental health problems, clinical psychological science must assert a leadership role in guiding a national response to this secondary crisis. In this article, COVID-19 is conceptualized as a unique, compounding, multidimensional stressor that will create a vast need for intervention and necessitate new paradigms for mental health service delivery and training. Urgent challenge areas across developmental periods are discussed, followed by a review of psychological symptoms that likely will increase in prevalence and require innovative solutions in both science and practice. Implications for new research directions, clinical approaches, and policy issues are discussed to highlight the opportunities for clinical psychological science to emerge as an updated, contemporary field capable of addressing the burden of mental illness and distress in the wake of COVID-19 and beyond. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Listening to the blues: An ecological momentary assessment of music choice in depression.

Persons with depression consistently report a different pattern of music preference, compared to nondepressed persons. Are such preferences maladaptive or beneficial? We tested this question in a study with 3 parts that examined 77 participants' (39 with and 38 without clinical depression) music choice in daily life, affective changes after music listening, and the reasons for music listening. During a 3-day ecological momentary assessment, participants chose a song from a preset music library of happy and sad songs and rated their affect before and after hearing the chosen song. In addition, we analyzed the characteristics (e.g., tempo) of songs participants listened to more than 5 times over 7 days (from participants' Spotfiy music streaming accounts; favorite songs). Finally, we analyzed the reasons for music listening in general when feeling happy and sad. Unlike nondepressed persons, persons with depression lacked a preference for happy over sad songs in daily contexts. Notably, both groups reported increased relaxedness as well as decreased happiness after hearing sad songs. Further, favorite songs of persons with depression had a slower tempo than nondepressed persons' ones. When reporting reasons to listen to music when feeling sad, both groups were less likely to report that they listened to music to increase high arousal positive affect, compared to other reasons. One reason that may attract persons with depression to sad music is a desire to feel calm. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).