The polluted mind: Understanding mental contamination as a transdiagnostic phenomenon

The transdiagnostic approach to conceptualizing anxiety disorders posits that (a) these conditions have more similarities than differences and (b) treatments for clinical anxiety are improved by greater understanding of mechanisms shared among the anxiety disorders. Accordingly, researchers have sought to examine psychological phenomena relevant to multiple anxiety-related conditions. One such phenomenon is mental contamination: the syndrome whereby an individual feels “dirty” or “impure” in the absence of direct contact with a contaminated stimulus. Despite theoretical and empirical support for the notion that mental contamination is related to multiple anxiety problems, mental contamination is most often studied in the context of obsessive-compulsive disorder only. The aim of the special issue is to highlight innovative research examining mental contamination as a potential transdiagnostic construct. Studies examining mental contamination in multiple contexts are presented in this special issue, which concludes with a summary and discussion of future research directions.