Psicóloga clínica, membro efetivo da Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses e com especialidade em Psicologia Clínica e da Saúde. Docente e investigadora na Universidade de Aveiro e membro integrado do William James Center for Research. Tem centrado a sua investigação no ajustamento psicossocial de adolescentes, particularmente face a questões relacionadas com a ansiedade social. A sua ligação ao ACT2ParenTeens resulta de uma progressão natural da sua investigação, para considerar o adolescente e também a sua família, como contexto essencial de desenvolvimento e ajustamento.

Psicóloga clínica, membro efetivo da Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses, com especialidade em Psicologia Clínica e da Saúde e especialidade avançada em psicoterapia. Docente no Departamento de Psicologia e Educação da Universidade Portucalense e investigadora do Cintesis.UPT@RISE-Health. Tem focado a sua investigação na vinculação, psicopatologia do desenvolvimento e processos de mudança em psicoterapia e noutros momentos de transição ao longo da vida. A sua ligação ao ACT2ParenTeens relaciona-se com o interesse em contribuir para a mudança na forma como os adolescentes e os seus pais lidam a ansiedade, encontrando estratégias promotoras de um funcionamento mais adaptativo, a nível individual e relacional/familiar.

Licenciada em Psicologia e mestre em Psicologia da Saúde e Neuropsicologia pela Universidade de Aveiro. Integra o projeto ACT2ParenTeens, enquanto bolseira de investigação, onde colabora na avaliação e intervenção psicológicas com adolescentes e a sua família.

Licenciada em Psicologia e mestre em Psicologia da Saúde e Neuropsicologia pela Universidade de Aveiro. Integra o projeto ACT2ParenTeens enquanto bolseira de investigação, onde colabora na avaliação e intervenção psicológicas com adolescentes e a sua família.

Vagos, P., Silva, J., Felix, D., & Oliveira, F. (2025). Anxiety runs in the family: Case study using an ACT framework. Comunicação oral no XII Simpósio Nacional de Investigação em Psicologia

Paula Vagos,
William James Center for Research
Universidade de Aveiro

Joana Silva
CINTESIS
Universidade Portucalense

Daniela Felix
Departamento de Educação e Psicologia
Universidade de Aveiro

Francisca Oliveira
Departamento de Educação e Psicologia
Universidade de Aveiro

Adolescent anxiety is a growing concern and has been found to be associated with parent-adolescent interactions (e.g., parental practices such as overprotection). We propose that these interactions may reflect and mutually reinforce psychological inflexibility processes that, within an Acceptance and Commitment framework (ACT), are the basis of human suffering.

We conducted semi structured interviews independently with a mother and an adolescent daughter (16YO); both agreed that the daughter had anxiety-related difficulties. The script considered how anxiety was manifested in the daughter and in the mother when faced with the daughters’ anxiety, PF processes that may underly their experience of anxiety, and how mother-daughter interacted in relation to that anxiety.

Mother and daughter referred to worrying as the most salient manifestation of their anxiety, towards which both manifested cognitive fusion, dominance of a feared future, and experiential avoidance as primary coping strategies. Both also showed values’ unclarity and difficulties in identifying different actions to cope with the daughters’ anxiety. For the mother, this related strongly with a self-as-content based on anxious self. These processes then manifested in an interaction pattern where the daughter avoided worrying the mother by not sharing her fears and the mother became fused with worries about not knowing what was troubling her daughter.

Adolescent anxiety seemed to be a shared family experience in that both mother and daughter became enmeshed in that experience and either fused with it or avoided it; neither mother daughter were connected to values when dealing with anxiety and so perpetuated non-valued (inter)actions focused mostly on short-term anxiety relief.
Alternatively, both could benefit from ACT for promoting intrapersonal psychological flexibility overall and, ultimately, develop valued-based (inter)actions.

Vagos, P. Santos, A.R., Martins, J., Palricas, D., Custódio, G., Amaral, I., & Tétis, L. (2025). Design of a gamified interface for the ACT2ParenTeens digital psychological intervention. Comunicação oral no 17th International Conference on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.

Paula Vagos
William James Center for Research
Universidade de Aveiro

Ana Rita Santos
DigiMedia- Centro de Investigação em Média digitais e Interação
Universidade de Aveiro

Joaquim Martins
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte
Universidade de Aveiro,

David Palricas
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte
Universidade de Aveiro,

Graziella Custódio
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte
Universidade de Aveiro,

Inês Amaral
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte
Universidade de Aveiro,

Laura Tétis
Departamento de Educação e Psicologia
Universidade de Aveiro

Adolescent anxiety is a growing concern that significantly impacts both adolescents and their families. However, few interventions conceptualize or address anxiety as a family-level challenge rather than solely an individual issue. This work aimed to design and develop an engaging, gamified interface for delivering the ACT2ParenTeens psychological intervention. Based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, this intervention intends to promote
psychological flexibility in parents and their anxious adolescent children.

The interface was created following four sequential steps: reviewing best practices in digital mental health tools to inform design decisions, developing a meaningful narrative to structure the intervention journey, creating engaging visuals aligned with the narrative, and programming a user-friendly gamified front-end interface that supports therapeutic pacing.

The ACT2ParenTeens interface places users in a symbolic journey to “find their way home” after being stranded by anxiety. Users begin by personalizing their avatar (e.g., skin tone), and as they progress through sessions, their avatar gains new accessories (e.g., raincoat, walking stick), which can be further customized. Each completed session or between session challenge unlocks badges that mark progress. Upon completing the intervention, users are awarded a personalized “journey portrait” featuring their avatar and all earned badges, visually representing their therapeutic journey.

This initiative represents an innovative step in integrating psychological science with digital technology. The resulting interface is intuitive, immersive, and engaging, and, thus, is expected to enhance motivation and adherence, serving as a bridge to both self-guided and therapist-led ACT-based intervention sessions.

Vagos, P., silva, J., Cardoso, D., & Tomé, J. (2025). How are we promoting psychological flexibility across developmental stages? Preliminary report on iACT for anxiety. Poster no Congresso Internacional de Saúde Mental no Jovem Adulto, Coimbra, Portugal

Paula Vagos,
William James Center for Research
Universidade de Aveiro

Joana Silva
RISE-Health
Departamento de Psicologia e Educação Universidade Portucalense Infante D. Henrique

Diana Cardoso
Departamento de Educação e Psicologia
Universidade de Aveiro

João Tomé
Departamento de Educação e Psicologia
Universidade de Aveiro

Introduction: Acceptance and commitment therapy has been shown an effective approach to anxiety, namely in a digital format (iACT). Still, this evidence has not considered how psychological flexibility (PF) is being promoted, which may be useful to tailor interventions to what works for whom.

Aims: To describe iACT targeting anxiety across developmental age groups, considering number of sessions, targeted PF processes and how they are ordered, and efficacy indicators.

Method: We analyzed the interventions collected by a systematic review (Kelson et al., 2019) on iACt for anxiety and selected works primarily addressing general anxiety symptoms.

Results: Four works targeted adults, and no study considered other age groups. Two works focused on college students (ACT on college life by Levin et al., 2017; The Student Compass by Räsänen et al., 2016) and another two mentioned adults more generally (The Worry Help for GAD, Dahlin et al., 2016; FearLess, Kelson et al., 2017). Interventions lasted from six to nine sessions and targeted from four to all six PF processes, though in diverse orders. Acceptance, present moment awareness and values were considered by all interventions. All works showed overtime improved well-being and/or diminished anxiety.

Conclusions: iACT for anxiety has been focused on adults, signaling a significant research gap. All interventions have shown promising results, though most of them have only considered some PF processes. This adds evidence to ACT’s assumptions that all PF processes are interconnected and complementary ways to develop a more functional way of relating to one’s internal experiences.

Vagos, P., Silva, J., Felix, D., & Oliveira, F. (2025). Anxiety runs in the family: Case study using an ACT framework. Comunicação oral no XII Simpósio Nacional de Investigação em Psicologia

Paula Vagos,
William James Center for Research
Universidade de Aveiro

Joana Silva
CINTESIS
Universidade Portucalense

Daniela Felix
Departamento de Educação e Psicologia
Universidade de Aveiro

Francisca Oliveira
Departamento de Educação e Psicologia
Universidade de Aveiro

Adolescent anxiety is a growing concern and has been found to be associated with parent-adolescent interactions (e.g., parental practices such as overprotection). We propose that these interactions may reflect and mutually reinforce psychological inflexibility processes that, within an Acceptance and Commitment framework (ACT), are the basis of human suffering.

We conducted semi structured interviews independently with a mother and an adolescent daughter (16YO); both agreed that the daughter had anxiety-related difficulties. The script considered how anxiety was manifested in the daughter and in the mother when faced with the daughters’ anxiety, PF processes that may underly their experience of anxiety, and how mother-daughter interacted in relation to that anxiety.

Mother and daughter referred to worrying as the most salient manifestation of their anxiety, towards which both manifested cognitive fusion, dominance of a feared future, and experiential avoidance as primary coping strategies. Both also showed values’ unclarity and difficulties in identifying different actions to cope with the daughters’ anxiety. For the mother, this related strongly with a self-as-content based on anxious self. These processes then manifested in an interaction pattern where the daughter avoided worrying the mother by not sharing her fears and the mother became fused with worries about not knowing what was troubling her daughter.

Adolescent anxiety seemed to be a shared family experience in that both mother and daughter became enmeshed in that experience and either fused with it or avoided it; neither mother daughter were connected to values when dealing with anxiety and so perpetuated non-valued (inter)actions focused mostly on short-term anxiety relief.
Alternatively, both could benefit from ACT for promoting intrapersonal psychological flexibility overall and, ultimately, develop valued-based (inter)actions.

Vagos, P. Santos, A.R., Martins, J., Palricas, D., Custódio, G., Amaral, I., & Tétis, L. (2025). Design of a gamified interface for the ACT2ParenTeens digital psychological intervention. Comunicação oral no 17th International Conference on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.

Paula Vagos
William James Center for Research
Universidade de Aveiro

Ana Rita Santos
DigiMedia- Centro de Investigação em Média digitais e Interação
Universidade de Aveiro

Joaquim Martins
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte
Universidade de Aveiro,

David Palricas
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte
Universidade de Aveiro,

Graziella Custódio
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte
Universidade de Aveiro,

Inês Amaral
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte
Universidade de Aveiro,

Laura Tétis
Departamento de Educação e Psicologia
Universidade de Aveiro

Adolescent anxiety is a growing concern that significantly impacts both adolescents and their families. However, few interventions conceptualize or address anxiety as a family-level challenge rather than solely an individual issue. This work aimed to design and develop an engaging, gamified interface for delivering the ACT2ParenTeens psychological intervention. Based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, this intervention intends to promote
psychological flexibility in parents and their anxious adolescent children.

The interface was created following four sequential steps: reviewing best practices in digital mental health tools to inform design decisions, developing a meaningful narrative to structure the intervention journey, creating engaging visuals aligned with the narrative, and programming a user-friendly gamified front-end interface that supports therapeutic pacing.

The ACT2ParenTeens interface places users in a symbolic journey to “find their way home” after being stranded by anxiety. Users begin by personalizing their avatar (e.g., skin tone), and as they progress through sessions, their avatar gains new accessories (e.g., raincoat, walking stick), which can be further customized. Each completed session or between session challenge unlocks badges that mark progress. Upon completing the intervention, users are awarded a personalized “journey portrait” featuring their avatar and all earned badges, visually representing their therapeutic journey.

This initiative represents an innovative step in integrating psychological science with digital technology. The resulting interface is intuitive, immersive, and engaging, and, thus, is expected to enhance motivation and adherence, serving as a bridge to both self-guided and therapist-led ACT-based intervention sessions.