Autobiographical Time Travel to Alleviate Loneliness in Older Adults

The goal of this clinical trial is to examine whether updating fundamental beliefs about self, others and the world using a mental time-travel group program can reduce loneliness and improve well-being in older adults when combined with multimodal social engagement opportunities. Over the span of eight sessions, participants within the experimental group will be guided to complete autobiographical simulations grounded in therapeutic techniques including reminiscence, imagery rescripting and positive future thinking. Participants within the active control group will be instructed to continue with their usual social group activities.

Inclusion Criteria: * Age ≥65 * Elevated loneliness based on a pre-specified cutoff of 44 on the UCLA version 3 Loneliness Scale (Russell, 1997) * Capacity to provide informed consent * Ability to participate in group sessions twice a week for four weeks Exclusion Criteria: * A diagnosis of dementia, mild cognitive impairment, stroke, other neurodegenerative disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorders * Any condition that would limit participants' capacity to benefit from or safely and comfortably complete the protocol. Given the nature of the protocol, which involves autobiographical memory recall in a group setting, individuals with a history of trauma-related diagnoses (e.g., PTSD or acute stress disorder) and/or those who score in the severe or extremely severe range on any of the depression (≥ 21), anxiety (≥ 15), or stress (≥ 26) subscales of the DASS-21, will be excluded in order to minimize the risk of significant distress during sessions * Participants who are unable to complete short questionnaires at each session and online at follow-up will be excluded